Chapter X: Part IV: I (1)

THE PALMS

At the end of March, in the mountainous districts, winter still holds sway. However, on Palm Sunday under a faint sun which gave to the pale sky the shade of a pearl in the light, Grenoble seemed to come to life again on its snowy horizon. Before the gate of the Cathedral, flower vendors, who had come from afar, even from beyond the Alps, as the harbingers of spring, showed and offered to the faithful who came to Mass, their bunches of green branches,--a little dead forest, scattered among the passersby, to be brought together again in the interior of the church, standing up bravely in the hands of all the worshipers. In anticipation they cried:

"Two sous for the blessed box-wood!"

Was it not a blessing in itself only to see that fresh verdure before the trees had even shown their buds?

Elizabeth, who was taking Marie Louise and Philippe to church (the latter having promised to be good during the service)--stopped before one of the improvised stands to select three palms. Absentmindedly, she gave more sous than the ragged little brunette had asked for.

"Here, Madame,--you have given me too much."

"Keep the change. Where do you come from?"

"From Bardonèche in Italy."

"What is your name?"

"Luisa."

"And where are your parents?"

"They are very far from here."

Marie Louise, who was clasping in her left hand a piece of money for the collection, held it out to the stranger, who took it without noticing her, as she stared open-mouthed at the young woman.

"And me? You didn't say thank you to me," said the child, vexed that her generosity should go unnoticed.

Luisa burst out laughing. Despite her innocent eyes she was very knowing, and in her enthusiasm, speaking again in her native tongue, she pointed to the object of her admiration:

"_E bella come la Madona_!" (She is as lovely as the Madonna!)

Elizabeth's cheeks grew crimson. The compliment struck her like those flowers which are thrown into one's face at flower fêtes, and which flatter and hurt one at the same time. She told her children to hurry.

"We shall be late--let us go in."

Philippe Lagier, who was standing on the square and had witnessed this scene, came up to her, but made no allusion to what he had just overheard, so as not to offend her. They were nearing the church steps. She placed her foot on the first step.

"Are you not coming in?"

"Yes. Does that surprise you? I love the Catholic services. They are incomparably poetical. To-day I shall go in to find the spring."

"Are you not seeking something else there?"

She smiled with that melancholy half-smile which harmonized so completely with her appealing expression. But she herself, had she confidence in God? She continued to mount the steps when he stopped her, not without visible emotion, but with great respect.

"Listen, Madame, I find you so changed...."

She wished to joke.

"Changed? It seems that it must be for the better. I have just heard so."

"Yes. Italians have the privilege of crying out what we must content ourselves with thinking. It is not a question of that. The winter has affected your health somewhat: it is evident--you must consult...."

"No, no, I am very well, I assure you."

She disappeared into the lobby. Abashed for a moment, he decided to follow her and sit a few rows behind her during Mass, so that she would not know of his presence. While her children's clothes were very carefully looked after, she was wearing a modest black dress, which must have seen hard service and was beginning to look shiny. As she had drawn her mourning veil over her shoulder in front, he could see her blonde hair, of such childish fairness, so delicate, so silky, and a corner of her white neck. When she rose or knelt, in accordance with the rites of the service, he noticed the flexibility of her movements and that suave grace, as of a young girl with whom one could not dare to associate impure ideas. At intervals her profile was invisible, then again he would catch a glimpse of it, like a bright spot between her dark hat and dress. How little she resembled the blooming, but apathetic, unresponsive wife of Albert Derizel Sorrow, loneliness, the care of disposing of her time, had sharpened her features, and even the lines of her figure. Her slender body swayed like the long stalk of a flower. In her slimness, which began to grow alarming, she retained that look of youth, which she formerly had as a result of lack of all occupation, and which now suggested a sort of recoil from the disillusioning revelations of life.

"She will break down," thought Philippe. "She will die of it. What can be done to save her?"

He was no longer actuated by selfish motives. In his heart, devoid of faith, but eager, she was his religious ideal, the Madonna with whom the little Italian had compared her.

The winter following Mme. Derize's death--(one of those long winters to which the region of the Alps is exposed)--had not been kind to Elizabeth. She had lost her firmest support, the contagious courage which emanates from calmness in time of trial, and also the last effective tie which linked her with her husband. Thus she had followed a more difficult path. As that plain at Grenoble, surrounded by mountains, appears colder in its circle of ice, so she felt desolation and loneliness about her like high walls. Mme. Molay-Norrois, it is true, realizing this dangerous state of mind, had given more expression to her maternal tenderness, but in the way natural to her passive nature, and rather by lamentations than by actions. Was she not--excellent woman--monopolized by her husband, who was embittered by illness and was accepting old age without resignation? He had always exercised the despotism of his pleasure at home. But his bad temper was preferable to his infidelity. He might not have rebelled against the effects of old age, if he could have endured them with Mme. Passerat, instead of being aggravated by knowing she was taking advantage of her slimness to wear more youthful clothes, and that by a bold maneuver she had just taken away the attentions of M. de Vimelle from the rich Mme. Bonnard-Basson. Providence was watching over her in all her ventures. This last conquest aroused a sort of exasperation in M. Molay-Norrois which helped the circulation of bad blood and increased his bad temper. What comfort could anyone find in such a home?

Elizabeth had not given up her self-imposed duty of giving her children the elements of their education. Marie Louise was almost nine years old and Philippe was six. She must think of their futures. She desired a busy, well-filled youth for them, remembering the weakening relaxation she had known in hers, and hoped to be able to accustom them to find their happiness in everyday things. But her moods, even with them, were now more changeable. She varied from prostration to feverish desire to amuse and occupy herself. Must one not live every day? She cried, she laughed nervously over nothing. Consumed with fever, she spent too much energy, and then fell back into a state of languor. She tried to follow, as far as possible, the plans she had laid out for herself, but advanced unevenly, sometimes slowly, sometimes hurriedly.

Out of society, because of her mourning and her sorrow, she did not care to receive anyone, except her friend Blanche Vernier, whose discreet devotion was restful, but without influence, and whose four children were in themselves quite a company for play and study. She had even been obliged to reject the attentions of M. de Vimelle who had suddenly begun to take her under his protection. Wearied by the vulgarity of his mistress and the thankless rôle that she made him fill he had thought of taking an honorable revenge by paying attention to a woman whom nobody defended. His natural vanity gave him erroneous ideas of his own value. Defeated by Elizabeth he fell back on the mature, lively and more accommodating Mme. Passerat, the conquest of whom would be attended with more publicity. He avenged himself for his setback by reporting to society the infrequent visits of Philippe Lagier to the Rue Haxo. Mme. Molay-Norrois, told by her husband, warned her daughter of this.

Elizabeth was indignant. Upon introspection, however, she found she might reproach herself. It was true, these visits of Philippe were more pleasant to her than she had admitted to herself. He came in shyly, afraid of not being received, and began by talking commonplaces. Shyness in a man of his worth and self-possession is in itself a homage. Then he changed his tone, and spoke with all his wit which was quick and pointed, and which, under the influence of a new tenderness, opened out and became more scintillating. What he said--apart from the lasting pleasure which his words gave, and which helped to make her forget the limitations of her life,--revealed a silent adoration that could never again be directly expressed. In that sort of mystic exaltation which comes with a love that is repressed, he cleverly managed to encourage in her a hope, which all reason and his soul denied.

As a self-imposed task, he wrote very regularly to his friend. At first Albert had sent only hasty replies; but little by little he acquired the habit of confidence. His bitter critical letters did not breathe happiness, and now he began to ask for news of his children. Thus the tie broken by the death of Mme. Derize was cleverly mended by Philippe Lagier's sincere friendship. Elizabeth, in the selfishness of her love, was not conscious that she had made such use of this friendship. Yet after rebelling against her mother's warning, she was guided by it. Besides actual honesty, there is an honesty of appearances of which women of to-day think very little. Above all, she had not the right to take advantage of a sentiment, which, however respectful, had its origin in a generous devotion, and in which she took a certain pride, owing to her deserted state--so harmful to a woman in her prime.

Philippe, delicately warned by her, came to the Rue Haxo only at rare intervals. It was a cruel deprivation for him. There he had really spent intense hours, realizing the greatest of all joys,--the joy of sacrifice. So, not having seen Elizabeth for almost a month, it was excusable that he should stop in the Cathedral Square at the hour of High Mass, in the hope of meeting her there; and he was better able than anyone who saw her daily to notice how thin she was, and all the symptoms of illness that she showed.

During the service he was wondering how he could help her. A change of air, a trip to Provence, to one of those little places, where one need only open his eyes to take in the joy of light and free space! Yes, but she was obstinately refusing Albert's assistance, and her own small resources limited her to a modest life without luxury. Perhaps that would decide the Molay-Norrois to take her back with them. How could they help noticing how she was fading? But how could Albert have gone away after being struck with her new fascination, her frailness? So he looked at her with pity. His prayers dwelt upon her. She was the tabernacle, which, like an offering, held the pure wish for self-sacrifice for which he was indebted to her.

Elizabeth tried--not less vainly, to follow the service. A memory and a fear returned to her successively with her prayers. The memory carried her back ten years to the time of her engagement on a Palm Sunday. It was on a sunny April day. But she felt no pleasure in being less than twenty and in love. Albert had gone to this same church with her and her parents. The vendors were offering their green branches too. Thoughtlessly she dwelt on the verge of an emotion, to which another, better informed or more far-sighted, would have given herself joyfully. Now she understood--after ten years--what an opportunity for uplifting their hearts she had lost in accepting with indifference that happy coincidence of the reawakening of nature, symbolized by the religious festival and the birth of their love.

"Look," he had said, "at all those branches of box-wood on the ground, for you--it seems as if you were walking in spring."

"Yes, it is Palm Sunday," she had answered.

This very simple response dispelled surprise. Was not love something which was due to little girls, and which admits of no pain? Her fiancé had then admired that tranquillity which contained the germ of their separation. How should she have expected to be deceived before understanding the care we must take of our happiness? Why had no one aroused her,--then, while there was still time--from that apathy which makes us sink into the beaten path, and does not allow us to reach the height from which we see the light and a broad vision? She would at least know how to save her children from her short-comings. They would not need despair to open their eyes to the sorrows of life. She would preserve their strength of feeling, their responsiveness, and they should be like young armed warriors, not heedless and enervated.

Would she have that power? That very morning, as she was dressing herself, she noticed how pale and thin she was, and before she could arrange her hair, she had been obliged to begin again several times, her arms heavy and stricken with an inexplicable weakness. Philippe Lagier had certainly noticed it. The remark of such a keen observer, coming back to her mind, startled her. Perhaps she was in danger. But what did a more or less long life matter to her? The last picture she had of Albert was that of a traveler, who sets out without looking back, without even suspecting the humiliated love, sobbing in the darkness a few feet away. Then why should one want so much to live? Marie Louise and Philippe, her own flesh, her blessing, and her new hope--Albert would have them. It was his right. After her death, he would marry that woman. And that woman would become the mother of her children. Ah, no, no, she could not conceive of that without a shudder of horror. She must live; at any price, she must live.

"Mamma, what is the matter with you?" asked Marie Louise, bending over her.

While the faithful worshiper had risen to receive the priest's blessing, Elizabeth remained kneeling, her head hidden, her shoulders shaking. The child repeated her question, and slipped her hand softly under her mother's arm to pat her cheek.

"Why are you crying? Philippe is good--and I love you so much."

For the child's sake, Elizabeth calmed herself at once. She drew down her veil to hide her wet eyes, and standing erect, she smiled.

"There is nothing the matter with me."

With this effort, she returned to her prayer. It was a desperate, exigent supplication which she addressed to God like an accusation:

"You would not allow that--you would not allow that!"

Comforted little by little, she promised herself to consult a doctor, to take care of herself, to fight against her illness. Philippe, who had noticed her emotion, dared not approach her, as she went out. His look, as he bowed to her, was filled with so much respect and compassion, that it made her uneasy. At the foot of the steps, little Luisa waved her sheaf of branches, crying.

"The blessed box, two sous."

When she recognized the young woman, she stopped short and forgot her sales.

"_Primavera_!" (Spring!), she said.

Elizabeth, touched and comforted by this spontaneous admiration, gave her a little piece of silver. But she shook her head--For her, there was no more spring.

II

PHILIPPE LAGIER'S MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY

Two or three days after Palm Sunday, Philippe Lagier, during a visit to M. Molay-Norrois, learned that the doctor had prescribed absolute rest for Elizabeth, and considering her to be, if not in actual danger--at any rate, in a serious state of decline which he must check at all costs, had her under his close observation. He hesitated as to what he should do then decided to let Albert know. Instead of receiving the answer he expected, he saw his friend come to his house. That was an indication of very keen anxiety. He had not been wrong in keeping up the young wife's hope: what unselfishness friendship demanded!

Albert, through his intermediary, begged, in the interests of his children, that she would grant him an interview, which she refused. Her illness, depressing her, made her less accessible to any attempt of reconciliation. "Is he free?" she had asked. And, as she could not be answered in the affirmative, of what benefit would be this meeting, which would only be painful, and could not, in any way, modify their respective positions? Did not their discretion consist in remaining apart? Thus set aside, he begged her to accept his help. A change of air would do her good, would be good for Marie Louise and her brother. When Philippe brought him another refusal, he flew into a passion, which terrified his friend, who tried in vain to keep him within bounds. Did he not speak of taking up the suit again, of claiming his paternal rights, of again suing for divorce?

On the following day, he acted on his own behalf. It was cruel and yet good for him. He went to the Saint-Roch cemetery where his parents, whom death had not separated, were lying side by side;--to the city park, where he wandered a long time watching the children at play, not knowing that his own were invited to Blanche Vernier's house; and to the Rue Haxo to look at the closed windows. Rejected everywhere, out of favor with fate, he wandered about Grenoble like a stranger, who has seen all the sights and does not know what to do. Before leaving, he excused himself to Philippe.

"I was wrong yesterday, you must understand me--I am sowing only suffering and evil about me--And it is unavoidable: I can do nothing for it. It is better for me never to return. You will come to see me in Paris?"

"I shall," said Philippe, "but what have you decided?"

"Nothing!"

"You will remain like this--without an official separation?"

"Yes. I promised my mother that I would never seek a divorce against Elizabeth's wish, and Anne despises our laws."

The last volume of the "History of the Peasant" had appeared the previous month, and drawing attention to the whole work, it was the subject of numerous reviews and even heated discussions in the press. In Parliament it had inspired the plan of a bill relating to unseizable family property. The death of an old statesman, forgotten because of his almost interminable old age, had caused a vacancy in the Academy. The newspapers, influenced by such brilliant success, had sympathetically mentioned the candidacy of Albert Derize, without consulting him. To Philippe's questions, he had only replied:

"In my position, it is impossible. And what do honors matter to me?"

He left with his friend a copy of his book for Marie Louise, with an appropriate inscription. Through the child, he saw Elizabeth. The invalid plunged into the reading of it. She discovered therein a sharper and more bitter tone, an authority which asserted itself without discretion, almost with insolence. The conclusions concerning the importance of patrimony, the family, the freedom to make one's will, the account of rural domain, and of tradition, all accorded with the strength of the first volumes, perhaps with less force of persuasion, but a more studied power, and in places, a mood of irritation which revealed an eloquence, both high-spirited and disillusioned.

Elizabeth's health triumphed over that crisis which was the result of an excess of moral fatigue--but she remained subject to nervous trouble, anæmic and susceptible to all injurious influences. Her doctor, who knew her from childhood, analyzed her case as a psychologist, and was not satisfied with her condition.

"This state of uncertainty brings about an irregularity of all the vital functions. A decided position, final separation, divorce would be preferable. After the shock, she could again take up a normal life. She is so young."

But she would hear nothing of this. She would wear herself out without improvement, as long as her strength lasted. Philippe, allowed to visit her, saw the "History of the Peasant" on a little table next to the sofa.

"You have read it?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Well?"

"It is very fine."

She added, as if speaking of someone else:

"Men can change their feelings without changing their thoughts. Women, no!"

It was she, who was now generalizing. He appeared to be meditating, as if weighing a difficult case, and at the end of his reflections, remarked simply:

"I believe he still loves you."

"Please--"

"I am sure of it. And I know how to give him back to you."

Half reclining on the cushions, she sat up, her cheeks flaming, her eyes shining with fever.

"I beg of you to give up that idea. He has wrecked his home. It was his affair to rebuild it. And now--"

"Now."

She allowed herself to fall back.

"It is too late," she said.

Philippe, ever eager to serve her, was painfully affected by this evidence of her state of disenchantment, and changed the conversation, which was painful to her.

"What are your plans? Shall you go to Provence into the sunshine?"

"No, spring is there. As soon as the warm weather comes, we shall go to Saint Martin d'Uriage."

"That is the mountains, and you may find it cold there again. You take very poor care of yourself."

She tried to make a slight motion of indifference, but her arm was too weak. As if the future no longer interested her, she explained, with that smile of conscious invalids, which permits them to mitigate the strictness of their doctors' orders:

"I shall soon be better, you will see. My health is good. In any case I have made my will."

"It is absurd! Why these gloomy thoughts?"

"I confide my children to the care of my mother. You understand I do not wish that woman--You will help mamma to put all obstacles aside, will you not?"

"Oh, Madame--"

"Will you promise me? Albert is your friend. He will listen to you."

Philippe rose, adding the melancholy of his hopeless love to his pity, and no longer able to master his emotion:

"No, no, Madame. That will not be."

The next day, using the end of his legal Easter holiday, he took the train to Paris, without letting anyone know of his journey. This absence, which would scarcely be remarked, lasted for several days. At Grenoble nobody suspected it. The lawyer had never been very confidential, and his goings and comings helped to preserve the mystery. As soon as he came back he went to the Rue Haxo. Elizabeth, with languor and an unsteady step, was slowly taking up her routine again. At the end of his visit, which was very short, he put this question to her:

"If they separated, what would you do?"

She evaded giving an answer.

"I do not know," she said.

"If he were free--if he came back to you."

She fixed him with her eyes, enlarged by illness, and lit up with a somber flame:

"I no longer believe that possible."

Scarcely had she said these words, than she felt as if she had refused an offer from Albert. In despair, she recalled the promise that she had sworn at Mme. Derize's death bed. She had said she would forgive, forgive without restriction. And now that she was recovering she had said "Too late," which is the excuse of the weak. When Philippe had gone, she reproached herself, but she was so weak. Had she not suffered too much, waited too long? Had she not been sufficiently humiliated by life? When a person had begun to enter on the path of abnegation and sacrifice, did he never stop, must he build an everlasting Calvary? To escape, to come back, to attempt to find personal happiness elsewhere, that she could not do; but, like an overladen beast, who resists an ascent, she felt neither the strength, nor the courage to go on. She did not know that one walks much longer when overtired, than before becoming fatigued. It is always at the end that an ascent demands the greatest effort.

After a brief glimpse of spring, the wind and rain had taken possession of Grenoble. One could hardly distinguish the neighboring mountains under the leaden sky. Thus the trip to Saint Martin was delayed, although Elizabeth was anxious to go away, and was eager for the open air. Encouraged by the change in the weather, she began her preparations on the 1st of May. A letter, which she received on the 8th, addressed to Mme. Albert Derize, née Molay-Norrois, Boulevard des Adieux, from whence it came back to her, altered her plans. It was a letter with the English postmark, with the address in a handwriting not entirely unknown to her, and which at once disquieted her. She held it in her hand defiantly before opening it, and did not decide to break the seal without a presentiment of evil. She was not mistaken: the foreign paper, those straight flowing letters, which she had seen before, had already broken up her life. She turned the pages which were numerous, and read the signature: "Anne de Sézery." Then she let the letter drop. How could she have had the audacity to write to her? By what right did she inflict such an insult upon her? Crushed, she sat down, but involuntarily looked on the ground. At last she bent over and picked up the paper which lay there. A few months ago she would have decided not to read it. But she had nothing more to hope, nor to fear. In certain excesses of sorrow, we lose the narrow sense of our dignity which we reserve for our intimate life alone. She began reading this strange letter with suspicion and aversion, ready at the least stinging word to discontinue and not to finish it. She read to the end without stopping.

"LONDON, 6th May, 1907.

"Madame:

"When you receive this letter I shall have left for a far distant country, where no one can follow me and from which I shall never return. That is my excuse for addressing you, and it is--believe me--your obligation to read this letter in its entirety.

"As a result of living in England, I have acquired the habit of candor. I therefore did not want an intermediary between us, for fear of wounding you. The circumstances in which we find ourselves are beyond the pettiness of delicacy, and demand courage, above all things. I must have more than you. If I speak to you of certain things of the past, it is that they may be useful to you in the future. If you have to make a decision, you must be informed.

"I can do nothing more for his happiness, and you, you can do much. That is the whole truth, and the truth must inspire us. I loved him before you did, and more than any other woman has ever loved him. That is the pride I shall take with me to the end of the world. He was my sole thought. When I met him after ten years' absence, I hoped at first to make a loyal friendship of this unusual love. But you did not welcome me kindly, and he himself did not help me. It is so difficult, especially in France, to fathom and to govern these affairs of the heart. After your departure from Paris, I awaited your return. You did not come back, and I believed you and he were finally separated. He was unhappy, and on my account. What could I do, since I loved him? In England we weigh our resolutions for a long time, and then our decision is final. With you, uncertainty may last for a lifetime.

"I was resigned to being socially ostracized. His social convictions, your children, my family traditions, the lack of a religious belief which I had lost, all united to keep us from a legal union. In my own conscience, I was his wife, the true companion of his heart and mind: little else mattered to me, but to live in harmony with him. Last autumn I knew that even his happiness was threatened. It was some days before his mother's death: he had met his children on a path in the country of his own childhood. The children: I did not understand the power of that tie which cannot break. How could I realize it? I never knew my mother, and my father was not concerned about my affection.

"The death of Mme. Derize contributed still more to separate our thoughts. He bore his sorrow alone, and I could not speak to him of her without irritating him. It is very wretched for a woman to remain a stranger to a large part of the life of her.... I was going to say, her husband. He certainly endeavored to lessen the pain he was causing me. His sorrow was like a wall between us, and there must be no walls when two people love each other. Then I fell ill this winter. Deprivations, the struggles of my first years in London, had left no visible traces on me, only a little inward wear and tear and a weakened power of resistance. I believed that love would give me back my youth. In my first illness, in the first breach of our intimacy, I noticed signs of those hard years in my face. And, as if I longed madly to destroy myself, I showed them to him one by one. I am no longer a young woman like you, and the days count for me. You will understand from this confession whether I have promised myself to be sincere.

"Our life was apparently unchanged. During his silences I followed the trend of his thoughts. The dead and the living, the past and the future were calling him to Dauphiné. We were only in accord when we traveled. One should always travel when one lives outside of ordinary life, but one cannot always travel. From certain fragments of sentences, from his absentmindedness, from his last visit to Grenoble, I felt that he had found a new woman in you. By an unexpected reaction, it was you who now became my rival. I had not believed that you would be so faithful, brave, resolute in hope, and so capable of making the most of unhappiness. The physical memory I retained of you, had very often been sufficient to inspire me with fear. Since you compelled me to admire you from afar, I detested you until the day I felt--so unhappily--that you could still do what I could no longer do, and that I should have to tell you so.

"His last book opened my eyes. I sought its pages in vain for that delightful weakness of pity, that bending of the will which I had found in all the writers whom Fate or their own desires had led to unconventional living. It treated only of family, of the home, of hierarchy, of endurance, of tradition, and of the dead. He expresses his deepest thoughts in his books. He put ours only into a 'Schumann,' which is heartrending. Finally, the newspapers spoke of his candidacy for the Academy. I was afraid of hearing it confirmed, when one day two friends, whom he esteemed highly, paid him a visit. He said nothing to me about the interview, the purpose of which was all too clear. I asked him about it, and he put me aside at the first word. No doubt your separation, the contrast between his convictions and his books, rendered any step difficult. From his hostile air, I knew he was ambitious, but weary.

"So everything was in league against me. He believed he had duties, as if there were any in love. One day he suggested that we should die together, when the slightest happiness is sufficient to restrain us. From that time, I began to think of disappearing. What should I do, if I did not go? I owe my practical judgment to English life. As he cannot forget you, neither you nor his children, since my love is no longer sufficient for him, my departure will give him back to his natural destiny, and I have accustomed myself to go on journeys alone. At another time he would have noticed my preparations, which I delayed, always awaiting a more favorable opportunity. Yesterday--on a rainy morning--he was away for the entire day. I took the train from London, and this evening I embark at Liverpool. He will never know where I am going. I have taken every precaution that it should remain a mystery.

"It seems to me that these explanations should fix our respective positions exactly, and that a warning should make it clearer for you what course to pursue. The harm I have done you, I did not wish to do, and you are repaying me without wishing it any more than I. Forget that. Forget me. One does not think of death when one holds life in armfuls, and when one hopes for love. May yours, Madame, inspire you, as mine has inspired me.

"ANNE DE SÉZERY."

Despite her despair and her spirit of sacrifice, this letter still implied that apologetic judgment of which we can so seldom divest our actions, even our noblest and most unselfish actions. Anne had not reached that thought of flight of her own volition. The intervention of another had pointed out that sorrowful course to her. But what is a thought in comparison with its realization? She had also omitted to mention that the illness to which she alluded had brought with it a gloomy mood, very unfavorable to love, and that of Albert's affection could have been touched by it, it would have required all the susceptibility of a passion lacking in trust to recognize it through unceasing devotion. No realization is more heart-rending than that of kindness, when we are expecting another sentiment.

Elizabeth had no doubts as to what she had just read. The sincerity of the accent, and that generosity went to her heart, even though the tone of protection wounded her. She was trembling from head to foot. Forgetting her abhorrence of all contact with the woman who had stolen her husband from her, she wished to reread Mlle. de Sézery's letter. In place of her old rebellion, the second reading made her so jealous that her nerves were shaken--not because of that physical jealousy which is less tyrannical in a woman than in a man, and which, moreover, she had understood so late, but rather a kind of mystic envy, of holy anger against that rival who had claimed to surpass her in loving: a fever of sacrifice.

Anne's disappearance was not the end. Free, Albert could, must rebuild his home and come back. She would consent to forgive him; yes, she would forgive him unreservedly. But what was this pardon in comparison with the other's sacrifice? Mme. Derize had told her one day that she was going to look for her son. Well, she would not be behind her in generosity. She would not wait till Albert returned, she would not speak of forgiveness. She would go herself and take her place again. And what humiliation to go and ask for that place still warm with love for another woman! Could she really submit to it? One needs more courage for ordinary circumstances of life in common, than for great departures and heroic actions. Well, she would have that courage. No sacrifice would be comparable to hers.

A mistress can prove her love by turning willingly from a life which she is hindering, and whose happiness no longer depends upon her. She, the wife, must show hers by her firm adherence to an attachment which is indissoluble. So Elizabeth, wounded and exalted, roused herself to vitalize her inactivity.

III

ELIZABETH IN PARIS

She wisely delayed her departure for three weeks. Should not the days fall like spadefuls of earth upon a coffin, after a separation which had been cruel? Philippe Lagier, whose rôle she did not suspect, had come to tell her of Albert's useless voyage to London.

"It will not be long before he returns," he assured her in a tone of mingled bitterness and irony. "Leave him the customary time for half-mourning."

But she did not confide any of her plans to him. As the days passed, she began to fear, and her hesitation took hold of her again. Was it not better to wait? Could Anne de Sézery be so quickly forgotten? The memory of Mme. Derize, the future of her children, an overwhelming desire for sacrifice and her love, drove her on, impelled her to go. Yes, she would spare her husband the first step, she would go to find him, she would bring him back. That magnanimous decision affected her like a fever, and so completely filled her mind, that she did not think of conjecturing the welcome she would receive.

At the end of May, fearing some new journey of Albert's, or the negative influence of solitude, she determined to go. Old Fanchette, sharing the secret, looked with terror at the open trunk.

"Paris! Paris!" she muttered, as if she were naming some beast of the Apocalypse.

"Sh!" said Elizabeth, not having told Marie Louise and Philippe, who chattered too much about the object of the journey, on which she was taking them as useful allies. The two were just disputing about the matter.

"I tell you we are going to Saint-Martin."

"Certainly not. We are going by train," stated the more competent little girl.

And their mother, as she listened, was laying her finest black dress in the top tray, arched so as not to crush it.

Once in the compartment, a second class carriage, the little ones could not restrain their joy.

"It is Paris!" cried the big boy, as if he had solved a delicate problem. And the magic syllables fell from his little round mouth like a golden ball.

Marie Louise looked attentively at her mother, and then came and laid her face against hers. Their cheeks were of the same delicacy, and their fair hair mingled.

"Shall we see papa?" asked the child.

"Yes."

"And we shall stay with him?"

"No, darling. We shall take him away."

"Ah, all the better."

And the little one added:

"Jeanne and Renée de Crozet will not be able to make fun of us at school now."

"Make fun of you?"

"Yes, because we had no papa."

Elizabeth passed her hand through the childish curls.

"Be calm. They won't make fun of you when he is there."

She smiled. She was sure of her victory. The fact of being active, the movement of the train as it proceeded, gave her a foretaste of heroism like that which a sheltered troop feels in war, before passing through the firing-line.

In Paris she settled with her children in a boarding-house on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, almost opposite Saint Germain des Prés.

"And the Luxembourg garden?" asked Marie Louise, who, after two years, still remembered her walks.

Trembling, Elizabeth took the children there. He crossed it every day, no doubt, and they might meet him there. She hastened to return to the hotel. The day after her arrival she dictated this letter to her daughter:

"My dear Papa:

"I am in Paris with mamma, and Philippe too. We are here to see a doctor. But you will come to see us. We must go away soon, so you must hurry.

"I send you kisses. Your daughter,

"MARIE LOUISE."

The excuse about the doctor had not been invented. The young woman had wished to take advantage of her trip to consult a specialist about the nervous temperament of the little girl, who was strong, but too impressionable, perhaps because she had understood her mother's sorrow, and the peculiarity of her childish life. The doctor had comforted her, advising the fresh air of the country and very little study. Then he turned abruptly to her:

"But you yourself, Madame? Take care; you must take care of yourself."

"Oh, I ..." Elizabeth said indifferently.

"Yes, you. Let me examine you."

After the examination he said:

"Nothing wrong with the heart. But no regularity in the pulse. One minute it is flying along, and the next it stops, and one no longer feels it. You have changed very much. I know, I know. The cure? It does not depend upon me."

"On me, then?"

The old man, who knew something about the Derize separation, concluded with these words.

"Hurry up and be happy...."

Albert received his daughter's letter in the Rue Bara. He had not changed his apartment. Before Anne's mysterious flight he went to dine every evening at Rue Cassini, and every morning she came to lunch with him. He often took her to the restaurants on the Boulevard Montparnasse, which look like tea gardens in the suburbs, and are much frequented by artists. When spring came, he rented at Ville d'Avray on the Sèvres, a little villa hidden among the trees and covered with clematis, and there their intimacy was more complete. It was when he came in on the evening of the 6th of May to see about their future establishment, that he found this brief farewell left with the porter of the Rue Cassini.

"My life belonged to you as long as it could give you happiness. Now that it can no longer do so, and that I am quite sure of it, forgive my taking my liberty once more. Good-by forever.

"ANNE."

He was prostrated by this departure. The silent discords which since his mother's death had slipped between them, certain disillusioned looks which he had noticed in the drooping corners of the lips and the long narrow eyes of his lost love, without attaching much importance to them, and that want of confidence which she had always expressed regarding happiness, even at the time of their most ardent passion, warranted him in imagining the worst catastrophes. He was able to reach the Gare du Nord in time to jump on an evening train. The next morning--and what a rough crossing he had--he arrived at Charing Cross and drove immediately to Bladen Lodge, Miss Pearson's home. If Anne were alive, she must have taken refuge there. In her hours of sadness, she was always homesick for English life. When he ran up the doorstep, he thought he could divine her presence from the other side of the walls. At the door, he parleyed in very bad English. Miss Pearson was not up at that time, had given no orders. He presented his card, and waited for a long time in a drawing-room, whose windows looked out on a miniature park. He seemed able to recall there the presence of his Anne to whom Bladen Lodge was home.

"She is here, I shall see her," he repeated with a beating heart.

At last Miss Pearson came to join him. After a few polite remarks and explanations, he at once asked for Mlle. de Sézery, as if he had a right to her and all hypocrisy was out of place, under the circumstances.

"She is not here," said Miss Pearson, whose frank determined face was severely set this morning.

"I beg of you, Madame, to tell me where I can find her."

"But I do not know."

"You do not know? But you have seen her.... Where is she hidden? I have the right to know. You have not seen her? ... Well ... But you understand that I have everything to fear."

Miss Pearson realized the anguish which the man was suffering, and putting aside her reserve, she betrayed as much of her secret as she could:

"You need have no fear for her life, Monsieur. Now it is useless to ask me any more. I shall not answer you."

He tried, however, eloquently, passionately, despairingly, but obtained no information. The momentary pity of Miss Pearson had not affected her loyalty. He left without any further information. But what he had heard agreed with his expectations. Anne had fled from France. Anne was in England--perhaps at Bladen Lodge, but he could not be sure. Every day he used his intelligence and his strength, which was exhausting itself in the unprofitable rôle of detective; he had the surroundings of Bolton Gardens watched; visited M. Portal, who knew nothing, asked about Lord Howard, who was shooting on his estate in Scotland: in his distress, he imagined that Mlle. de Sézery, in leaving him thus, and not revealing her whereabouts, must have tired of her irregular living, meant to take up her life alone and live it according to her own fancies. Broken down by fatigue, he rested only a few hours in the evening, having gained nothing from his search. The next day he took it up again, assisted by a French detective, and setting out in another direction, he took the train for Liverpool. He looked on the registers at the steamship offices, through the lists of passengers going to America or India, but Anne's name was not to be found among them. She had been able to disguise herself. He questioned the clerks. How could they recall a face, a woman's figure in such a crowd? However, there was a Miss Lewisham with auburn hair. And golden eyes? They did not know at the offices whether or not she had golden eyes. He went back by way of Southampton, began the same questioning with as little success. Anne was lost to him.

By a phenomenon, usual in the history of passions, he restored to the absent one all the attributes which, little by little he had taken from her. Their last months together had not been pleasant. Anne had been tired and generally sad after her illness. She reproached herself everlastingly about her youth and her complexion, which were fading. He patiently bore these complaints, which were the result of an excess of sensitiveness and of that melancholy natural to those who, too early in life and without preparation, have endured the miseries and humiliations of fate. But no man who is at work can entirely suppress the boredom he meets with in his home, nor the displeasure he experiences in listening to lamentations. Their intellectual life alone retained the power of a mutual bond. A chapter of the "History of the Peasant," the biography of some great man, provided material for endless discussions. Still he did not relinquish any of his ideas concerning the social order, nor did he know how to convince her of his view-point. Pure lines of classic art, the positive force of experience attracted him, when, on the contrary, she was enthusiastic about elaborate forms, and avoided realities for all Utopias. At intervals, wearied by their useless clash of opinion, they appealed to each other through their former love, and grew tender, not daring to admit to themselves that it was a compromise. And too often Albert absently went off in a direction where she could not follow him, and which she very well knew. Now, deserted by her, he did not wish to owe to her his freedom for which he had often longed, and he fancied himself linked to the memory of Anne.

The Avenue of the Observatory and the mysterious little Rue Cassini, the Allée de Mortemart at the Bois de Boulogne, the road which runs along the pond of La Reine Blanche to Chantilly, saw him pass on his pilgrimage. In these appropriate frames he could better call to mind the long golden eyes, the sorrowful mouth, and the step, light and weary at the same time. In place of spring which was blooming everywhere, he wished for autumn, whose pathetic grace had so often caressed them. Thus do our emotions crush us as they die away, and he mistook the sweetness of having loved for love itself.

Marie Louise's letter came as an untimely interruption in his sorrow. For six months or perhaps a year, his thoughts had never been so far from his own family, who had selected a very bad time to come to him. Why did they worry him in his solitude? He could not ignore this call, but it was against his will to reply to it. He asked for Mme. Derize at the boarding house. He was shown into the drawing-room on the ground floor, which overlooked Saint Germain-des-Prés, whose pointed steeple and old gray stones he could see between the branches of the chestnuts, already in full bloom. It was a peaceful retreat from the noise of Paris. Elizabeth sent her two children in as scouts. How could he receive them badly? Marie Louise told him about the visit to the doctor, and Philippe informed him of his interest in the botanical gardens. When, in her turn, his wife appeared, with a dismayed expression, he cruelly assumed his unresponsive manner.

"She knows I am deserted," he thought with irritation. "She is coming to seek me. She is triumphant."

In seeing him again she experienced neither exaltation nor the hope of departure. She was conscious of that impression of failure which all know, who, full of their subject and eager to express it, meet with indifference or hostility; their tongues are no longer persuasive, and their words grow weak. She explained this journey as well as she could.

Although he evidenced that he was distant and that this intrusion into his life displeased him, he was more struck than he showed with the change he saw in Elizabeth's features and the thinness of her body. One would have thought, with her flexibility and pallor which made her appear taller, that she was going to break at the slightest blow of fate. He was angry with her for that frailty which attracted him irresistibly, and at the same time alarmed him. In his masculine selfishness, still making her suffer, and already foreseeing her in his future, he preferred her to be faithful at a distance. After a few insignificant words, he could not refrain from asking her:

"Have you been ill?"

"Yes," interrupted Marie Louise. "The doctor scolded her."

"Not at all," answered the young woman. "I am quite well."

She sent her children to play at the other end of the room, but the little girl often came back to them.

With his bitter tone he put her at variance with herself:

"You refused to receive me last month in Grenoble and you come to surprise me here."

Confusedly, she murmured:

"The circumstances are not the same now."

"What circumstances?"

Having once declared herself, she was no longer shy or afraid. She did not hesitate to tell the truth. Since he was voluntarily silent, had she not to remind him of her rights as a woman, and the obligations which children impose? She thought she had opened his heart, but he had brutally shut it again. With what reserve and modesty she justified her step, and how well the exigency of the case helped her with a proposition that she had not prepared in advance, and which her mind hit upon with the first words.

"I have come because you are free now. Then, it seemed to me that we ought to be reconciled at least outwardly, for the sake of the future of Marie Louise and Philippe, and your future too. I am always your wife. I was a very poor one before. I understood that too late. But I have suffered much. I am not reproaching you with anything. Some day perhaps I shall forget, we shall forget.--I do not know.... Perhaps you might take your mother's flat in the Boulevard des Adieux for the summer. Saint Martin is not far from Grenoble. You could come up and see us sometimes in the daytime. Is it impossible?"

What dignity she preserved in this humiliation which she so little deserved, and which must have cost her so much. Albert had not been entirely able to lose her from his memory except in the first months of his infidelity, and since he had seen her again in circumstances in which one's sensibility becomes more deeply impregnated with impressions, the refined and purified charm which he had found in her recurred to him too often in comparison with Anne. But a man's heart has so many complicated recesses: free, he puts from him furiously the solution he ardently wished when he was not free. The romantic pride of his liaison and the thought of submitting for the second time to lessons of love, the antipathy which is inevitably aroused in us by the clear understanding of a reality which imposes itself like a fatal and logical order of things, made him retire with himself, and separated him from all outside influence.

"I am detained in Paris," he said after a short silence.

From the beginning of the scene she had had an intuition of her failure, but nevertheless, she suffered keenly.