Chapter XI: Part 11

"'My friend; I cannot receive you again in my room; Leoni knows all and threatens me with the most horrible consequences; take me away or I am lost. Take me to my mother or put me in a convent; do with me as you please, but rescue me from my present horrible plight. Be in front of the main door of the cathedral at one o'clock to-morrow morning, and we will make arrangements for our departure. It will be easy for me to meet you, as Leoni passes every night at La Zagarolo's. Do not be surprised by this extraordinary and almost illegible handwriting: Leoni, in a fit of anger, almost crushed my right hand.

"'JULIETTE RUYTER.'"

"It seems to me that letter is very judiciously expressed," said the marquis, "and that it will seem plausible enough to the Fleming, whatever the degree of intimacy between him and your wife. The words which she fancied that she was saying to him at times in her delirium make it certain that he offered to take her back to her own country. The writing is horrible, and whether he is familiar with Juliette's or not----"

"Let me see it," said Leoni, leaning over the table with an air of interest.

His face wore a horrifying expression of doubt and longing to be persuaded. I saw no more. My brain was exhausted, my thoughts became confused. I relapsed into a sort of lethargy.

XVIII

When I came to myself the flickering lamplight fell upon the same objects. I raised myself cautiously and saw the marquis just where he was when I lost consciousness. It was still dark. There were still bottles on the table, as well as a writing-desk and something which I could not see very plainly, but which resembled a weapon. Leoni was standing in the middle of the room. I tried to recall their previous conversation. I hoped that the ghastly fragments of it which recurred to my memory were merely the dreams of fever, and I had no idea at first that twenty-four hours had elapsed between that conversation and the one just beginning. The first words that I understood were these:

"He must have suspected something for he was armed to the teeth."

As he spoke, Leoni wiped his bleeding hand with his handkerchief.

"Bah! yours is nothing but a scratch," said the marquis; "I have a more severe wound in the leg; and yet I must dance at the ball to-morrow, so that no one may suspect anything. So stop fussing over your hand, wrap it up and think of something else."

"It is impossible for me to think of anything but that blood. It seems to me that I see a lake of it all about me."

"Your nerves are too delicate, Leoni; you are good for nothing."

"_Canaille_!" exclaimed Leoni in a tone of hatred and contempt, "but for me you would be a dead man; you retreated like a coward, and you would have been struck from behind. If I had not seen that you were lost, and if your ruin would not have involved mine, I would never have touched that man at such an hour and in such a place. But your infernal obstinacy compelled me to be your accomplice. All that I needed was to commit a murder, to be worthy of your society."

"Don't play the modest man," retorted the marquis; "when you saw that he defended himself, you became a very tiger."

"Ah! yes, it rejoiced my heart to have him die defending himself; for after all I killed him fairly."

"Very fairly; he had postponed the game till the next day, and as you were in a hurry to be done with it, you killed him on the spot."

"Whose fault was it, traitor? Why did you throw yourself on him just as we were separating after we had agreed to meet the next day? Why did you run when you saw that he was armed, and thus compel me to defend you or else be denounced by him to-morrow for having conspired with you to lure him into a trap and murder him? Now I have made myself liable to the scaffold, and yet I am not a murderer. I fought with equal weapons, equal chance, equal courage."

"Yes, he defended himself like a man," said the marquis; "you both performed prodigies of valor. It was a very fine spectacle to see, truly Homeric, was that duel with knives. But I am bound to say that for a Venetian you handle that weapon wretchedly."

"It is quite true that it isn't the weapon I am in the habit of using, and by the way I am inclined to think it would be wise to conceal or destroy this one."

"That would be the height of folly, my friend! You must keep it; your servants and friends know that you always carry such a weapon; if you should dispose of it, that would be an indication of guilt."

"True, but yours?"

"Mine is innocent of his blood; my first blows missed, and after that yours left me no room."

"Ah! heaven! that is true too. You tried to murder him, and fatality compelled me to do with my own hands the deed of which I had such a horror."

"It pleases you to say that, my dear fellow; however, you went very willingly to the rendezvous."

"I had an instinctive foreboding that my evil genius would force me to do it. After all, it was my destiny and his. We are rid of him at last! But why in the devil did you empty his pockets?"

"Precaution and presence of mind on my part. When they find him stripped of his money and his wallet, they will look for the assassin among the lowest classes, and will never suspect people in fashionable society. It will be considered an act of brigandage and not a matter of private revenge. Don't betray yourself by absurd emotion when you hear the affair mentioned to-morrow, and we have nothing to fear. Just reach me the candle so that I can burn these papers; as for honest coin, that never betrayed anybody."

"Stop!" said Leoni, seizing a letter which the marquis was about to burn with the rest. "I saw Juliette's family name."

"It is a letter to Madame Ruyter," said the marquis. "Let us see:"

"'MADAME,

"'If it is not too late, if you did not start at once on receiving the letter I wrote yesterday summoning you to your daughter, do not start. Wait at home for her or come to meet her as far as Strasbourg; I will send for you when we reach there. I shall be there with Mademoiselle Ruyter in a few days. She has decided to fly from her seducer's dishonor and ill treatment. I have just received a note in which she announces this determination. I am to see her to-night to agree upon the time of our departure. I will leave all my business in order to make the most of her present disposition, in which her lover's flatteries may not leave her forever. The empire that he has over her is still immense. I fear that her passion for that wretch is eternal, and that her regret for having left him will make you both shed many tears hereafter. Be indulgent and kind to her; that is your proper rôle as her mother, and you can easily play it. For my part, I am rough-mannered, and my indignation finds expression more readily than my compassion. I wish I were more persuasive; but I cannot be more lovable, and it is my destiny not to be loved.

"'PAUL HENRYET.'"

"This proves to you, O my friend!" said the marquis in a mocking tone, as he held the letter in the flame of the candle, "that your wife is faithful and that you are the most fortunate of husbands."

"Poor woman!" said Leoni, "and poor Henryet! He would have made her happy! He would at least have respected and honored her! In God's name, what fatality drove her into the arms of a wretched adventurer, drawn to her by destiny from one end of the world to the other, when she had an honorable man's heart at her very hand. Blind child! why did you choose me?"

"Charming!" said the marquis ironically. "I hope you will write some verses on this subject. A pretty epitaph for the man you massacred to-night would be, to my mind, in exceedingly good taste and altogether new."

"Yes, I will write one for him," retorted Leoni, "and it will run like this:

"'Here lies an honest man who tried to defend human justice against two scoundrels, and whom divine justice allowed them to murder.'"

Thereupon, Leoni fell into a sorrowful reverie, during which he constantly muttered his victim's name:

"Paul Henryet!" he said. "Twenty-two years old, twenty-four at most. A cold but handsome face. A rigid, upright character. Hatred of injustice. The uncompromising pride of honesty, and withal something tender and melancholy. He loved Juliette, he has always loved her. He fought against his passion to no purpose. I see by that letter that he loved her still, and that he would have worshipped her if he could have cured her. Juliette, Juliette! you might still have been happy with him, and I have killed him! I have robbed you of the man who might have comforted you; your only defender is no more, and you remain the victim of a bandit."

"Very fine!" said the marquis; "I wish that you might never move your lips without having a stenographer beside you to preserve all the noble and affecting things you say. For my part, I am going to bed. Good-night, my dear fellow; go to bed to your wife, but change your shirt first; for, deuce take me! you have Henryet's blood on your frill!"

The marquis left the room. Leoni, after a moment's irresolution, came to my bed, raised the curtain and looked at me. He saw that I was only drowsing under my bedclothes, and that my eyes were open and fixed upon him. He could not endure my livid face and fixed stare; he fell back with a cry of horror, and I called him several times in a weak, broken voice: "Murderer! murderer! murderer!"

He fell on his knees as if struck by lightning, and dragged himself to my bed with an imploring air.

"Go to bed to your wife," I said, repeating the marquis's words in a sort of delirium; "but change your shirt, for you have Henryet's blood on your frill!"

Leoni fell face downward on the floor, uttering inarticulate cries. I lost my reason altogether, and it seemed to me that I repeated his cries, imitating with dazed servility the tone of his voice and the contortions of his body. He thought that I was mad, and, springing to his feet in terror, came to my side. I thought that he was going to kill me; I threw myself out of bed, crying: "Mercy! mercy! I won't tell!" and I fainted just as he seized me, to lift me up and assist me.

XIX

I awoke, still in his arms, and he had never put forth so much eloquence, so much affection, so many tears, to implore his pardon. He confessed that he was the lowest of men; but, he said, there was one thing, and only one, that raised him somewhat in his eyes, and that was the love he had always had for me, and which none of his vices, none of his crimes had had the power to stifle. Hitherto he had fought against the appearances which accused him on all sides. He had struggled against overwhelming evidence in order to retain my esteem. Thenceforth, being no longer able to justify himself by falsehood, he took a different course and assumed a new rôle, in order to move me and conquer me. He laid aside all artifice--perhaps I should say all sense of shame--and confessed all the villainy of his life. But amid all that filth he forced me to distinguish and to understand what there was in his character that was truly noble, the faculty of loving, the everlasting vigor of a heart in which the most exhausting weariness, the most dangerous trials, did not extinguish the sacred flame.

"My conduct is base," he said to me, "but my heart is still noble. It still bleeds for its crimes; it has retained, in all the vigor of its first youth, the sentiment of justice and injustice, horror of the evil it does, enthusiastic admiration of the good it beholds. Your patience, your virtues, your angelic kindliness, your pity, as inexhaustible as God's, can never be displayed in favor of a being who appreciates them better or admires them more. A man of regular morals and sensitive conscience would consider them more natural and would appreciate them less. With such a man you would be simply a virtuous woman; while with a man like me you are a sublime woman, and the debt of gratitude which is piling up in my heart is as great as your sacrifices and your sufferings. Ah! it is something to be loved and to be entitled to a boundless passion, and from what other man have you so good a right to claim such a passion as from me? For whom would you subject yourself again to the tortures and the despair you have undergone? Do you think there is anything else in life but love? For my part, I do not. And do you think that it is a simple matter to inspire it and to feel it? Thousands of men die incomplete, having never known any other love than that of the beasts. Often a heart capable of loving seeks in vain where to bestow its love, and comes forth pure of all earthly passions, perhaps to find a place in heaven. Ah! when God vouchsafes to us on earth that profound, passionate, ineffable sentiment, we must no longer desire or hope for paradise, Juliette; for paradise is the blending of two hearts in a kiss of love. And when we have found it here on earth, what matters it whether it be in the arms of a saint or of one of the damned? What matters it whether the man you love be accursed or adored among men, so long as he returns your love? Is it I whom you love, or is it this noise that is going on about me? What did you love in me at the outset? Was it the splendor that encompassed me? If you hate me to-day, I must needs doubt your past love; I must needs see in you, instead of that angel, that devoted victim whose blood, shed for me, falls ceaselessly drop by drop upon my lips, only a poor, weak, credulous girl, who loved me from vanity and deserted me from selfishness. Juliette, Juliette, think of what you will do if you leave me! You will ruin the only friend who knows you, appreciates and respects you, for a society which despises you now and whose esteem you will never recover. You have nothing left but me in the whole world, my poor child. You must either cling to the adventurer's fortunes or die forgotten in a convent. If you leave me, you are no less insane than cruel; you will have had all your misery, all your sufferings, and you will not reap their fruit; for now, if, notwithstanding all that you know, you can still love me and stay with me, be sure that I will love you with a love of which you have no conception, and which I never should have dreamed of as possible if I had married you honestly and lived with you peacefully in the bosom of your family. Hitherto, despite all you have sacrificed, all you have suffered, I have not loved you as I feel that I am capable of loving. You have never yet loved me as I am; you have cherished an attachment for a false Leoni, in whom you still saw some grandeur and some fascination. You hoped that he would become some day the man you loved in the beginning; you did not believe that you had held in your arms a man who was irrevocably lost. And I said to myself: 'She loves me conditionally; it is not I whom she loves as yet, but the character I am acting. When she sees my features under my mask, she will cover her eyes and fly; she will look with horror on the lover whom now she presses to her bosom. No, she is not the wife and mistress I had dreamed of, and for whom my ardent heart is calling with all its strength. Juliette is still a part of that society whose foe I am; she will be my foe when she knows me. I cannot confide in her; I cannot pour out upon the bosom of any living being the most execrable of my sufferings, my shame for what I am doing every day. I suffer, I am heaping up remorse in my soul. If only there were a woman capable of loving me without asking me to change--if I could have a friend who would not be an accuser and a judge!'--That is what I thought, Juliette. I prayed to heaven for that friend, but I prayed that it might be you and no other; for you were already what I loved best on earth before. I realized all that there still remained for us both to do before loving each other really."

What could I reply to such speeches? I looked at him with a stupefied air. I was amazed that I still considered him handsome and lovable; that I still felt in his presence the same emotion, the same desire for his caresses, the same gratitude for his love. His degradation left no trace on his noble brow; and when his great black eyes flashed their flame upon mine, I was dazzled, intoxicated as always; all his blemishes disappeared, everything was blotted out, even the stains of Henryet's blood. I forgot everything else to bind myself to him by blind vows, by oaths and insane embraces. Then in very truth his love was rekindled or rather renewed, as he had prophesied. He gradually abandoned the Princess Zagarolo and passed all the time of my convalescence at my feet, with the same loving attentions and the delicate tokens of affection which had made me so happy in Switzerland; I can say, indeed, that these proofs of affection were even more ardent and caused me more pride, that was the happiest period of my whole life, and that Leoni was never dearer to me. I was convinced of the truth of all that he had told me; nor could I fear that he clung to me from self-interest, as I had nothing more in the world to give him, and was thenceforth a burden to him and dependent upon the hazards of his fortunes. However I felt a sort of pride in not falling short of what he expected from my generosity, and his gratitude seemed to me greater than my sacrifices.

One evening he came home in a state of great excitement, and said, pressing me to his heart again and again:

"My Juliette, my sister, my wife, my angel, you must be as kind and indulgent as God himself, you must give me a fresh proof of your adorable sweetness and your heroism; you must come and live with me at the Princess Zagarolo's."

I recoiled, surprised beyond words; and, as I realized that it was no longer in my power to deny him anything, I turned pale and began to tremble like a condemned man at the gallows' foot.

"Listen," he said, "the princess is horribly ill. I have neglected her on your account; she has grieved so that her disease has become seriously aggravated and the doctors give her only a month to live. Since you know everything, I can speak to you about that infernal will. It is a matter of several millions, and I am in competition with a family on the alert to take advantage of my mistakes and turn me out at the decisive moment. The will in my favor is in existence, in proper form, but a moment's anger may destroy it. We are ruined, we have no other resource. You will have to go to the hospital and I become a leader of brigands, if it escapes us."

"O _mon Dieu_!" I said, "we lived so inexpensively in Switzerland! Why is wealth a necessity to us? Now that we love each other so well, can we not live happily without committing any new villainy?"

He answered by a frown which expressed the disappointment, the annoyance and the dread which my reproaches caused him. I said nothing more in that connection, but asked him wherein I was necessary to the success of his enterprise.

"Because the princess, in a fit of jealousy not without some foundation, has demanded to see you and question you. My enemies have taken pains to inform her that I pass all my mornings with a young and pretty woman who came to Milan after me. For a long time I succeeded in making her believe that you were my sister; but, during this month that I have neglected her altogether, she has conceived doubts, and refuses to believe in your illness, which I alleged as an excuse for my neglect.--'If your sister is sick too, and can't do without you,' she said, 'have her brought to my house; my women and my doctors will take care of her. You can see her at any time; and if she is really your sister, I will love her as if she were my sister too.'--I tried in vain to fight against this strange whim. I told her that you were very poor and very proud, that nothing in the world would induce you to accept her hospitality, and that it would, in fact, be exceedingly unseemly and indelicate for you to come to live in the house of your brother's mistress. She would listen to no excuse and replied to all my objections with: 'I see that you are deceiving me; she is not your sister.'--If you refuse, we are lost. Come, come, come; I implore you, my child, come!"

I took my hat and shawl without replying. While I was dressing, tears rolled slowly down my cheeks. As we left my chamber, Leoni wiped them away with his lips and embraced me again and again, calling me his benefactress, his guardian angel and his only friend.

I passed with trembling limbs through the princess's vast apartments. When I saw the magnificence of the house, I had an indescribable feeling of oppression at my heart, and I remembered Henryet's harsh words: "When she is dead, you will be rich, Juliette; you will inherit her splendor, you will sleep in her bed and you can wear her gowns."--I hung my head as I passed the servants; it seemed to me that they glared at me with hatred and envy; and I felt far beneath them. Leoni pressed my arm in his, feeling my body tremble and my legs give way.

"Courage! courage!" he whispered to me.

We reached the bedroom at last. The princess was lying in an invalid's chair and seemed to be awaiting us impatiently. She was a woman of about thirty years, very thin, with a yellow face, and magnificently dressed, although _en déshabillé_. She must have been very beautiful in her early days, and she still had a charming face. The thinness of her cheeks exaggerated the size of her eyes, the whites of which, vitrified by consumption, resembled mother of pearl. Her fine, smooth hair was of a glistening black and seemed dry and sickly like her whole person. When she saw me, she uttered a faint exclamation of joy and held out a long, tapering hand, of a bluish tinge, which I fancy that I can see at this moment. I understood, by a glance from Leoni, that I was expected to kiss that hand, and I resigned myself to the necessity.

Leoni was undoubtedly ill at ease, and yet his self-possession and the tranquillity of his manners confounded me. He spoke of me to his mistress as if there were no possibility of her discovering his knavery, and expressed his affection for her before me, as if it were impossible for me to feel any grief or anger. The princess seemed to have fits of distrust from time to time, and I could see, by her glances and her words, that she was studying me in order to destroy her suspicions or confirm them. As my natural mildness of disposition made it impossible for her to hate me, she soon began to have confidence in me; and, jealous as she was, to the point of frenzy, she thought that it was impossible for any woman to consent to take the part I was playing. An adventuress might have done it, but my manners and my face gave the lie to any such conjecture as to my character. The princess became passionately fond of me. She would hardly allow me to leave her bedroom, she overwhelmed me with gifts and caresses. I was a little humiliated by her generosity and I longed to refuse her gifts; but the fear of displeasing Leoni made me endure this additional mortification. What I had to suffer during the first days, and the efforts that I made to bend my pride to that extent, are beyond belief. However, the suffering gradually became less keen, and my mental plight became endurable. Leoni manifested in secret a passionate gratitude and delirious fondness. The princess, despite her whims, her impatience, and all the torture that her love for Leoni caused me, became agreeable and almost dear to me. Her heart was ardent rather than loving, and her nature lavish rather than generous. But she had an irresistible charm of manner; the wit with which her language sparkled in the midst of her most intense agony, the ingeniously kind and caressing words with which she thanked me for my attentions or begged me to forget her outbreaks of temper, her little cajoleries, her shrewd observations, the coquetry which attended her to the grave; in short, everything about her had an originality, a nobility, a refinement by which I was the more deeply impressed because I had never seen a woman of her rank at close quarters, and was not accustomed to the great charm which they owe to their familiarity with the best society. She possessed that charm to such a degree that I could not resist it and allowed myself to be swayed by it at her pleasure; she was so coy and fascinating with Leoni that I imagined that he was really in love with her, and ended by becoming accustomed to see them kiss, and to listen to their insipid speeches without being revolted by them. Indeed, there were days when they were so charming and so witty that I really enjoyed listening to them; and Leoni found means to say such sweet things to me that I was happy even in my unspeakable degradation.

The ill-will which the servants and underlings displayed toward me at first was speedily allayed, thanks to the pains I took to turn over to them all the little gifts their mistress gave me. I even enjoyed the affection and confidence of the nephews and cousins; a very pretty little niece, whom the princess obstinately refused to see, was smuggled into her presence by my assistance, and pleased her exceedingly. Thereupon, I begged her to allow me to give the child a pretty casket which she had forced upon me that morning; and this display of generosity led her to give the child a much more valuable present. Leoni, in whose greed there was nothing paltry or petty, was pleased to see this bounty bestowed on a poor orphan, and the other relations began to believe that they had nothing to fear from us, and that our friendship for the princess was purely noble and disinterested. The essays at tale-bearing against me ceased entirely, and for two months we led a very tranquil life. I was astonished to find that I was almost happy.

XX

The only thing that disturbed me seriously was the constant presence of the Marquis de ----. He had obtained an introduction to the princess, on what pretext I have no idea, and amused her by his caustic, ill-natured chatter. Then he would draw Leoni into another room and have long interviews with him, from which Leoni always came with a gloomy brow.

"I hate and despise Lorenzo," he often said to me; "he is the vilest cur I know; he is capable of anything."

Thereupon, I would urge him to break with him; but he always replied:

"It is impossible, Juliette; don't you know that when two rascals have acted together, they never fall out except to send each other to the scaffold?"

These ominous words sounded so strangely in that beautiful palace, amid the peaceful life we were leading, and almost within hearing of that gracious and trustful princess, that a shudder ran through my veins when I heard them.

Meanwhile, our dear invalid's suffering increased from day to day, and the moment soon came when she must inevitably give up the struggle. We saw that she was failing gradually; but she did not lose her presence of mind for an instant, nor cease her jests and her kind speeches.

"How sorry I am," she said to Leoni, "that Juliette is your sister! Now that I am going to the other world, I must renounce you. I can neither demand nor desire that you remain faithful to me after my death. Unfortunately, you are certain to make a fool of yourself and throw yourself at the head of some woman who is unworthy of you. I know nobody in the world but your sister who is good enough for you; she is an angel, and no one but you is worthy of her."

I could not resist this kindly flattery, and my affection for the princess became warmer and warmer as death slowly took her from us. I could not believe it possible that she would be taken away with all her faculties, all her tranquillity, and when we were all so happy together. I asked myself how we could possibly live without her, and I could not think of her great gilded armchair standing unoccupied, between Leoni and myself, without my eyes filling with tears.

One evening, when I was reading to her while Leoni sat on the carpet warming her feet in a muff, she received a letter, read it through hastily, uttered a loud shriek and fainted. While I flew to her assistance, Leoni picked up the letter and ran his eye over it. Although the writing was disguised, he recognized the hand of the Vicomte de Chalm. It was a denunciation of me, with circumstantial details concerning my family, my abduction, my relations with Leoni; and, with all the rest, a mass of detestable falsehoods regarding my morals and my character.

At the shriek which the princess uttered, Lorenzo, who was always hovering about us like a bird of evil omen, entered the room, I know not how; and Leoni, taking him into a corner, showed him the viscount's letter. When they came back to us, the marquis was very calm, and had a mocking smile on his lips, as usual; while Leoni, intensely agitated, seemed to question him with his eyes as if to ask his advice.

The princess was still unconscious in my arms. The marquis shrugged his shoulders.

"Your wife is intolerably stupid," he said, so loud that I overheard him. "Her presence here now will have the worst possible effect. Send her away; tell her to go for help. I will take everything on myself."

"But what will you do?" said Leoni, in great anxiety.

"Never fear. I have had an expedient all ready for a long while; it's a paper that I always have about me. But send Juliette away."

Leoni asked me to call the servants. I obeyed, and laid the princess's head gently on a cushion. But just as I was passing through the door, some undefinable magnetic force stopped me and made me turn. I saw the marquis approach the invalid as if to assist her; but his face seemed so wicked and Leoni's so pale, that I was afraid to leave the dying woman alone with them. Heaven knows what vague ideas passed through my brain. I hastened to the bed and, glancing at Leoni in terror, I said: "Beware! beware!"--"Of what?" he replied, with an air of amazement. In truth I did not know myself, and I was ashamed of the species of madness I had shown. The marquis's ironical air completed my discomfiture. I went out and returned a moment later with the princess's women and the physician. He found the princess suffering from a terrible nervous spasm, and said that we must try to make her swallow a spoonful of her sedative mixture at once. We tried in vain to force her teeth apart.

"Let the signora try it," said one of the women, pointing to me; "the princess won't take anything from anybody else, and never refuses what she gives her."

I did try, and the dying woman readily yielded. Through force of habit she pressed my hand feebly as she returned the spoon to me; then she violently threw up her arms, raised herself as if she were about to jump out of bed, and fell back dead on her pillow.

This sudden death made a terrible impression on me; I fainted and was carried from the room. I was ill several days, and, when I returned to life, Leoni informed me that I was thenceforth in my own house; that the will had been opened and found unassailable in every respect; that we were the possessors of a handsome fortune and a magnificent palace.

"I owe it all to you, Juliette," he said, "and, more than that, I owe it to you that I am able to think without shame or remorse of our friend's last moments. Your delicacy, your angelic goodness, encompassed them with attentions and lessened their melancholy. She died in your arms, that rival whom any other woman than you would have strangled; and you wept for her as if she were your sister! You are good! too good, too good! Now enjoy the fruit of your courage; see how happy I am to be rich and to be able to surround you once more with all the luxury that you crave."

"Hush," I replied; "now is the time when I blush and suffer. So long as that woman was here, and I was sacrificing my love and my pride to her, I took comfort in the thought that I was really fond of her, and that I was sacrificing myself for her and for you. Now I see only what was base and detestable in my situation. How everybody must despise us!"

"You are greatly mistaken, my dear girl," said Leoni; "everybody bows down to us and honors us because we are rich."

But Leoni did not long enjoy his triumph. The heirs-at-law, who came from Rome furious against us, having learned the details of the princess's sudden demise, accused us of having hastened it by poison, and demanded that the body should be exhumed to ascertain the facts. That was done, and, at the first glance, the traces of a powerful poison were discovered.

"We are lost!" said Leoni, rushing into my room. "Ildegonda was poisoned, and we are accused of having done it. Who could have committed that abominable crime? We must not ask the question, for it was Satan with Lorenzo's face. That is how he serves us. He is safe, and we are in the hands of the law. Do you feel the courage to leap out of the window?"

"No," I said; "I am innocent; I fear nothing. If you are guilty, fly."

"I am not guilty, Juliette," he said, squeezing my arm fiercely. "Do not accuse me when I do not accuse myself. You know that I am not in the habit of sparing myself."

We were arrested and thrown into prison. The prosecution made much noise, but it was less protracted and its result less serious than people expected. Our innocence saved us. In face of such a horrible charge I recovered all the strength due to a pure conscience. My youth and my air of sincerity won the judges at the very beginning. I was speedily acquitted. Leoni's honor and life hung in the balance a little longer. But it was impossible, despite appearances, to find any proof against him, for he was not guilty. He was horror-stricken by the crime--his face and his answers said so plainly enough. He came forth purged of that accusation. All the servants were suspected. The marquis had disappeared, but he returned secretly the moment that we were discharged from prison, and presumed to order Leoni to divide the inheritance with him. He declared that we owed him everything; that, except for the audacity and prompt execution of his plan, the will would have been destroyed. Leoni made the most terrific threats, but the marquis was not frightened. He had the murder of Henryet as a weapon to hold Leoni in awe, and he had it in his power to ruin him utterly. Leoni, frantic with rage, resigned himself to the necessity of paying him a considerable sum.

We began at once to lead a life of wild dissipation and to display the most immeasurable magnificence: to ruin himself anew was with Leoni a matter of six short months. I saw without regret the disappearance of the wealth which I had acquired with shame and sorrow; but I was terrified for Leoni's sake at the near approach of poverty. I knew that he could not endure it, and that to escape from it, he would plunge into fresh misconduct and fresh dangers. Unfortunately it was impossible to induce him to practise self-restraint and prudence; he replied with caresses or jests to my entreaties and warnings. He had fifteen English horses in his stable, his table was open to the whole city, and he had a troupe of musicians at his orders. But the principal cause of his ruin was the enormous sums he was compelled to give his former associates, to prevent them from swooping down upon him and making his house a den of thieves. He had induced them to agree not to ply their trade under his roof; and, to persuade them to leave the salon when his guests began to play cards, he was obliged to pay them a considerable sum every day. This intolerable servitude made him long sometimes to fly from the world and conceal himself with me in some peaceful retreat. But truth compels me to say that prospect was even more appalling to him; for the affection he felt for me was not strong enough to fill his whole life. He was always kind to me, but, as at Venice, he neglected me to drink his fill of all the pleasures of wealth. He led the most dissolute life away from home, and kept several mistresses, whom he selected from a certain fashionable set, to whom he made magnificent presents, and whose society flattered his insatiable vanity. Base and sordid in the acquisition of wealth, he was superb in his prodigality. His fickle character changed with his fortune, and his love for me followed all its phases. In the agitation and suffering caused by his reverses, having nobody but me in all the world to pity him and love him, he returned to me with heartfelt joy; but in his pleasures he forgot me and sought keener delights elsewhere. I was aware of all his infidelities; whether from indolence, or indifference, or confidence in my unwearying forgiveness, he no longer took the trouble to conceal them from me; and when I reproved him for the indelicacy of such frankness, he reminded me of my conduct toward the Princess Zagarolo, and asked me if my pity were already exhausted. Thus the past bound me irrevocably to patience and grief. The greatest injustice in Leoni's conduct was his apparent belief that I was ready to submit to all these sacrifices thenceforth, without pain, and that a woman could ever become accustomed to overcome her jealousy.

I received a letter from my mother, who had heard of me at last through Henryet, and who had fallen dangerously ill just as she was starting to join me. She implored me to go to take care of her, and promised to welcome me with gratitude and without reproaches. That letter was a thousand times too gentle and too kind. I bathed it with my tears; but, argue with myself as I would, it seemed to me not what it should be; it was so mild and humble in tone and expression as to be undignified. Must I say it?--it was not the pardon of a noble and loving mother, alas! but the appeal of a sick and bored woman. I started at once and found her dying. She blessed me, pardoned me and died in my arms, requesting me to see that she was buried in a certain dress of which she had been very fond.

XXI

So much fatigue of body and mind, so much suffering had almost exhausted my sensibility. I hardly wept for my mother; I shut myself up in her room after they had taken her body away, and there I remained, crushed and despondent, for several months, occupied solely in reviewing the past in all its phases, and never bethinking myself to wonder what I should do in the future. My aunt, who had greeted me very coldly at first, was touched by this mute grief, which her character understood better than the more demonstrative form of tears. She looked after my welfare in silence, and saw to it that I did not allow myself to die of hunger. The melancholy aspect of that house, which I had known so cheerful and bright, was well adapted to my frame of mind. I saw the old furniture, which recalled the numberless trivial events of my childhood. I compared that time, when a scratch on my finger was the most terrible catastrophe that could disturb the tranquillity of my family, with the infamous and blood-stained life I had subsequently led. I saw, on the one hand, my mother at the ball, on the other, the Princess Zagarolo dying of poison in my arms, perhaps by my hand. The music of the violins echoed in my dreams amid the shrieks of the murdered Henryet; and, in the seclusion of the prison, where, during three months of agony, I had seemed to hear a sentence of death each day, I saw coming toward me, amid the glare of candles and the perfume of flowers, my own ghost clad in silver crêpe and covered with jewels. Sometimes, tired out by these confused and terrifying dreams, I walked to the window, raised the curtains and looked out upon that city where I had been so happy and so flattered, and on the trees of that promenade where so much admiration had followed my every step. But I soon noticed the insulting curiosity which my pale face aroused. People stopped under my window or stood in groups talking about me, almost pointing their fingers at me. Then I would step back, drop the curtains, sit down beside my mother's bed and remain there until my aunt came with her silent face and noiseless step, took my arm and led me to the table. Her manner toward me at that crisis of my life, seemed to me most generous and most appropriate to my situation. I would not have listened to words of consolation, I could not have endured reproaches, I should not have put faith in marks of esteem. Silent affection and unobtrusive compassion made more impression on me. That dismal face, which moved noiselessly about me like a ghost, like a reminder of the past, was the only face that neither disturbed nor terrified me. Sometimes I took her dry hands and held them to my lips for several minutes, without giving vent to a sigh. She never replied to that caress, but stood patiently, and did not withdraw her hands from my kisses; that was much.

I no longer thought of Leoni except as a ghastly memory which I sought with all my strength to banish. The thought of returning to him made me shudder as the sight of an execution would have done. I had not energy enough remaining to love him or hate him. He did not write to me and I was hardly aware of it, I had counted so little on his letters. One day there came one which told me of new disasters. A will of the Princess Zagarolo had been found, bearing a later date than ours. One of her servants, in whom she had confidence, had had the will in his custody ever since the day of its date. She had made it at the time that Leoni had neglected her to take care of me, and she was doubtful as to our relationship. Afterward, when she became reconciled to us, she had intended to destroy it; but, as she was subject to innumerable whims, she had kept both wills, so that she might at any time decide which she would leave in force. Leoni knew where his was kept; but the existence of the other was known only to Vincenzo, the princess's man of confidence; and he was under instructions to burn it at a sign from her. She did not anticipate, poor creature, such a sudden and violent death. Vincenzo, whom Leoni had laden with benefactions, and who was altogether devoted to him at that time, having moreover no knowledge of the princess's final intentions, kept the will without saying a word, and allowed us to produce ours. He might have enriched himself by threatening us or selling his secret to the heirs-at-law; but he was not a dishonest man nor a wicked one. He allowed us to enjoy the inheritance, demanding no higher wages than he had previously received. But, when I had left Leoni, he became dissatisfied; for Leoni was brutal with his servants, and I retained them in his service only by my indulgence. One day Leoni forgot himself so far as to strike the old man, who at once pulled the will from his pocket and told him that he was going to take it to the princess's cousins. Threats, entreaties, offers of money, all were powerless to appease his anger. The marquis appeared on the scene and attempted to obtain possession of the fatal paper by force; but Vincenzo, who was a remarkably powerful man for his years, knocked him down, struck him, threatened to throw Leoni through the window if he attacked him, and hurried away to publish the document that avenged him. Leoni was at once dispossessed, and ordered to restore all that he had expended of the property, that is to say, three fourths of it. As he was unable to comply, he tried to fly, but in vain. He was put into prison, and it was from the prison that he wrote to me, not all the details which I have given you and which I learned afterward, but a few words in which he depicted the horror of his position. If I did not go to his aid, he might languish all his life in the most horrible captivity, for he no longer had the means to procure the comforts with which we had been able to surround ourselves at the time of our former confinement. His friends had abandoned him and perhaps were glad to be rid of him. He was absolutely without resources, in a damp cell, where he was already very ill with fever. His jewels, even his linen had been sold; he had almost nothing to protect him from the cold.

I started at once. As I had never intended to settle definitively in Brussels, and as naught but the indolence of grief had delayed me there for half a year, I had converted almost all of my inheritance into cash; I had often thought of using it to found a hospital for penitent girls, and to become a nun therein. At other times I had thought of depositing it in the Bank of France, and purchasing an inalienable annuity for Leoni, which would keep him from want and villainy forever. I should have retained for myself only a modest annuity, and have buried myself alone in the Swiss valley where the memory of my happiness would assist me to endure the horror of solitude. When I learned the new disaster that had befallen Leoni, I felt that my love and anxiety for him sprang into life, more intense than ever. I sent all my fortune to a banking house at Milan. I reserved only a sufficient amount to double the pension which my father had bequeathed to my aunt. That amount was represented, to her great satisfaction, by the house in which we lived and in which she had passed half of her life. I abandoned it to her and set out to join Leoni. She did not ask me where I was going; she knew only too well; she did not try to detain me, she did not thank me, she simply pressed my hand; but when I turned to look back, I saw rolling slowly down her wrinkled cheek the first tear I had ever known her to shed.

XXII

I found Leoni in a horrible condition, haggard, pale as death and almost mad. It was the first time that want and suffering had really taken hold of him. Hitherto he had simply seen his wealth vanish little by little, while seeking and finding means to replenish it. His disasters in that respect had been great; but card-sharping and chance had never left him long battling with the privations of poverty. His mental power had always remained intact, but it was overcome when physical strength abandoned him. I found him in a state of nervous excitement which resembled madness. I gave securities for his debt. It was easy for me to furnish proofs of my responsibility, for I had them upon me. So I entered his prison only to set him free. His joy was so intense that he could not endure it, and he had to be carried, unconscious, to a carriage.