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Title: The eyes of innocence

Author: Maurice Leblanc

Illustrator: George W. Gage

Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos

Release date: May 21, 2024 [eBook #73662]

Most recently updated: October 31, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: New York: The MacAuley Company, 1920

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73662

Credits: Peter Becker, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EYES OF INNOCENCE ***

THE EYES OF INNOCENCE

There was a faint sound behind her.

(Page 159)

THE

EYES OF INNOCENCE

BY

MAURICE LEBLANC

Author of “Arsène Lupin,” “The Golden Triangle,”

“The Woman of Mystery,” “The

Secret of Sarek,” etc.

TRANSLATED BY

ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS

NEW YORK

THE MACAULAY COMPANY

1920

Copyright, 1920, by

THE MACAULAY COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PAGE

I

GILBERTE

11

II

THE SOLITARY

24

III

THE UNKNOWN

39

IV

AN EVENING AT MME. DE LA VAUDRAYE’S

52

V

THE SUITORS

68

VI

A NEW FRIEND

85

VII

GILBERTE’S TWO FRIENDS

103

VIII

THE APPOINTMENT

119

IX

AFFIANCED

137

X

THE DESERTED HOUSE

150

XI

GILBERTE’S NAME

165

THE EYES OF INNOCENCE

I

GILBERTE

“WOULD you please give your name, madam?” asked the waiter.

And he handed the elder of the two travellers a sheet of paper headed, “Villa-pension des Deux Mondes, Dieppe.”

“Write down the name, Gilberte,” she said. “I am so tired.”

Gilberte took the pen and wrote:

“Mme. Armand and daughter, from London, bound for.... Now that I think of it, where are we going next, mother?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter!” said the waiter.

And he took the paper and left the room.

“Yes, Mr. Waiter,” cried the young girl, with a laugh. “Mme. Armand and her daughter, arriving from England, from Germany, from Russia, coming to France and delighted, especially Mlle. Armand, who does not yet know her own country!”

“Will you find happiness here?” murmured her mother, sadly, drawing her daughter to her. “There is none left for me, since your poor father is dead; but you, my pet, my dear, loving Gilberte, what has the future in store for you?”

“Why, joys, mother darling, nothing but the greatest joys: haven’t I you with me?”

They exchanged a long embrace. Then Mme. Armand said:

“Gilberte, the crossing has upset me; I feel I must lie down for a while. Go and sit on the terrace and come back in an hour. Then we will unpack our trunks and go to the post-office.”

“Are you expecting a letter?”

“Yes.”

“From whom?”

“How inquisitive you are!”

“Oh, mummy, you’re always saying that! But are you sure that it’s not you who are a little—what shall I say—mysterious? You never answer even my simplest questions.”

“I shall answer them one day, child, but not before I have to ... not before I have to.”

Gilberte saw her mother’s face wrung with such anguish that she was silent and fondly kissed her hand. Mme. Armand went on:

“Yes, you are right. I am a little mysterious, very mysterious even; but if you only know how it hurts me to be so! Still, I will answer you this time, dear: the letter I am expecting is from your nurse.”

“From my nurse? Then I was brought up in France? But where?”

Mme. Armand was silent. Gilberte waited a few moments, then put on her hat and cloak and said:

“Go and lie down, mother. You poor dear, you look as you do on your bad days.... There, I’ll leave you in peace.”

“You won’t go out, will you, dear?”

“Go out? I, who have never left your side? Why, I should be afraid to walk down the street all by myself! I shall be back soon, dearest.”

She opened the door and went downstairs. Above the reception-rooms, which occupied a wing consisting of a single floor, to the right of the garden, was a terrace covered with tents and wicker chairs. She sat down there.

It was a mild and balmy October day. The wide, deserted beach was bright with sunshine. The sea was very calm and edged with a narrow fringe of foam.

An hour passed.

“I will go in,” she said, “when that little boat disappears behind the jetty.”

The boat disappeared and she rose to her feet. As she went up the stairs, a childish idea came into her head, an idea which she was destined long to remember, together with the smallest details of that terrible minute:

“If mother is still asleep,” she thought, “I will blow on her forehead to wake her.”

She listened at the door. Not a sound. She laughed roguishly. Then, slowly, cautiously, she opened the door. Mme. Armand lay stretched on the bed. Gilberte went up to her. For some indefinable reason, she forgot her intended joke and simply kissed her mother on the forehead.

A cry escaped her lips. Terror-stricken, she flung herself upon her mother, caught her desperately in her arms and fell fainting beside the bed.

Mme. Armand was dead.

* * *

A room in which she sobs for hours on end, heedless of all things, huddled in a little chair, or on her knees before a white-curtained bed; people who come and go; a doctor who certifies the cause of death; aneurism of the heart, beyond a doubt; the lady of the house, who tries to comfort her; a commissary of police who puts questions which she is unable to answer and who makes her look in her mother’s trunks for papers that are not there: these are Gilberte’s lasting memories of those two dreadful days.

Then came the singing in the church, a long road between bare, wind-stripped trees, the graveyard and the final and irrevocable parting from her who, until now, was all her life, her soul, her light....

Oh, the first night spent in solitude and those first meals taken with no one opposite her and those long interminable days during which she never stopped weeping the big tears that come welling up from the heart as from a spring which nothing can dry up! Alone, knowing nobody, what was she to do? Where could she go? To whom could she turn?

“The important thing,” insisted the lady of the house, who sometimes came to see her in her room, “the most important thing is that you should have a solicitor. Mine is prepared to come whenever you please. I spoke to him about you; and it seems that there are formalities. Remember what the commissary said about the papers....”

Gilberte remembered nothing, for she had listened to nothing. Nevertheless, the persistency of this advice, repeated daily and with such conviction, ended by persuading her; and, one morning, she sent to ask Maître Dufornéril to be good enough to call on her.

Maître Dufornéril had one of those placid and good-natured faces the sight of which seems to soothe you at once. He gave the impression of attaching so much importance to the business in hand that it would have been impossible not to take at least some interest in it one’s self. Gilberte, therefore, was obliged to reflect, to tax her memory, in short, to reply.

“From what I have learnt, mademoiselle, it is evident that no papers have been found enabling us to establish your mother’s identity and your own. The commissary, however, told me of an envelope containing securities which he advised you to lock up carefully. Is it still in your possession?”

“I don’t know.... Mother never told me.... Is this what you mean?” she asked.

The solicitor took two fat, leather portfolios from the mantelpiece and opened them. He was astounded at what he saw:

“And do you leave this lying about?... Bonds payable to bearer?”

Gilberte blushed, feeling as if she had committed some enormous crime. He counted the sheets, made a rapid addition and said:

“You are very well off, mademoiselle.”

“Really?” she said, absent-mindedly. “Yes ... mother said something....”

After a peace during which he watched her with increasing surprise, he asked:

“And have you your mother’s papers, your father’s papers?”

“What papers?”

“Why, their birth-certificates, your own, their marriage-certificate, in fact, everything that established their position and now establishes yours.”

“I haven’t them.”

“But they must be somewhere.... Can you give me no clue as to where they are?”

“No.... But I seem to remember once hearing them talk of papers that had been lost ... or rather burnt in a fire ... or else ... in fact, I can’t say for certain.” ...

“Come, come!” cried Maître Dufornéril. “We are on the wrong track altogether! Let us start from the beginning. Where were you born?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Mother would never tell me exactly.”

“But where was she born? And your father?”

“I don’t know that either.”

The solicitor looked up. Was she laughing at him? But, at the sight of her sad face and candid eyes, he was silent for a moment and then went on:

“You have come from London?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have friends over there, acquaintances?”

“No, we lived quite alone.”

“Never mind: if you give me the address of the house you lived in, we shall easily find traces of Mme. Armand.”

“Mother was not called Mme. Armand in London; she was called Aubert.”

“But Armand is your real name?”

“I don’t think so. At Liverpool, where we lived for three years and where father died, last year, after making such a lot of money, we were known by the name of Killner. Before that, at Berlin, it was Dumas.... And, at Moscow.” ...

“You don’t know the reason why your parents used to change their name like that?”

“No, I do not.”

“You saw nothing in your parents’ character to explain it?”

“No, nothing.”

“Were they on good terms?”

“Oh, yes! They were so fond of each other! And mother was so happy!”

So happy! How positively Gilberte was able to say that! Happy indeed beside her husband, under his eyes, with her hand in his. But why was she so often caught crying? Why those hours of gloomy melancholy, of inexplicable depression? Why had she one day drawn her daughter to her, stammering:

“Ah, my child; my child! Never do anything that you have to hide: it is too painful!”

Gilberte was on the point of speaking. A vague sense of shame prevented her. Besides, Maître Dufornéril, who had taken down a few notes in his pocket-book, was beginning again:

“Give me all the particulars that can help us, mademoiselle. The smallest details are of importance.”

She mentioned the towns in which they had lived: Vienna, Trieste, Milan, with their memories of a secluded life, easy of late, but so hard and difficult at first; and then, further back, Barcelona, where they had been very unhappy; and then came memories, more and more indistinct, of poverty, hunger, cold....

“We shall find out, mademoiselle,” declared the solicitor. “It won’t be an easy business, for we have to do with a combination of abnormal circumstances which baffle me a little, I admit. But, after all, it is inconceivable that we should not find out. You have to know, you must know who you are and what name you are entitled to bear. Will you trust your interests to me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, first of all, you must leave this bundle of securities in my hands: I will give you a receipt for it. I will cash the coupons as they fall due and send you the proceeds when you need money. Where were you going with your mother?”

“She was expecting a letter.”

“A letter? That is one clue.”

“But the letter was addressed to the pôste restante; and I don’t know in what name or initials.”

“True.... Then what do you intend to do?”

“I intend to go somewhere at random. I have heard mother speak of Chartres, Saumer, Domfront. I shall choose one of those towns, the quietest ... no matter where ... as long as I can weep undisturbed.”

“Poor child!” murmured Maître Dufornéril.

II

THE SOLITARY

“OF the fortress built, in 1011, by Guillaume de Bellême, on the summit of the rock at Domfront, at 300 feet above the little River Varenne, all that is now left standing is two great strips of wall, flanked by picturesque buttresses and pierced with wide arches, the remains of the ancient keep. Round about are a few traces of ramparts and remnants of underground passages, all arranged in the form of a square and in a perfect state of preservation.”

The guide-books, however, for some reason, fail to mention the manor-house built, in the seventeenth century, by Pierre de Donnadieu, Governor of Anjou, on the site and with the materials of the outbuildings of the old fortress. The logis, as this sort of dwelling is called in Lower Normandy, is intact and wholly charming. Four slender, tapering turrets grace the corners. An enormous roof, decked with two monumental chimneys, seems to top it with a fool’s cap, too large for its little granite forehead lined with two rows of bricks. The entrance is through the square, but the main front overlooks the precipice and a garden staggers down the steep slope to the river that winds through the pretty Valdes Rochers.

Fourteen years earlier, M. and Mme. de la Vaudraye, one of the leading families of the neighborhood, had ruined themselves in unfortunate speculations. M. de la Vaudraye died of grief and shame. His widow, in order to pay for the education of her ten-year-old son, let the manor-house, which formed part of her dowry and which had been in the possession of her family for nearly two hundred years. It was taken, for a time, by one of the garrison officers, but was now once more untenanted.

Here Gilberte sought refuge like a poor wounded animal. The very sleepiness of Domfront had attracted her, its look as of some vanquished city, wearied of a valorous past and taking its just and honourable repose. Strolling through the ruins, she saw, on the door of the Logis, a notice, “TO LET.” She went in search of the owner.

Mme. de la Vaudraye, a tall, thin, hard-eyed woman, expressed herself in affected sentences of which her lips formed the syllables carefully, one by one, as though they were things of price that must be carried to the highest pitch of perfection.

“I can see from your attitude, madame,” she said, “that you have been struck by the unimpeachable condition of my house. Woodwork, mirrors, curtains, furniture: everything is in perfect repair. And yet the Logis is one of the most historic abodes in the district.” ...

Gilberte was no longer listening. She had been called, “Madame.” It had seemed natural then to address her like that? If so, could she pass as married, in spite of her age? The thought surprised her. And yet, she reflected, how could any one suppose that a young girl would come by herself to treat for the manor-house and live in it by herself?

She remembered a piece of advice which the solicitor had given her:

“If you wish to lead a quiet life, not a word about the past before we have shed a full light upon it.”

Yes, but how much easier it would be to veil the past under that name of “madame”! And how much better that title would protect her! As a girl, living alone, she must needs be the object of curiosity, the victim of any amount of gossip. As a married woman, she would be in a normal position; her solitary existence would cause no surprise; she could keep off intruders, go about as she pleased, or stay indoors and weep, with none to spy upon the secret of her tears.

“In what name shall I make out the agreement?” asked Mme. de la Vaudraye, when everything was settled: settled to the great advantage of the owner, who had increased her rent by one-half.

“Why, in my own name: Mme. Armand!” said Gilberte, without foreseeing the consequences which this decision involved.

Mme. de la Vaudraye hesitated:

“But ... perhaps we shall want ... M. Armand’s signature.” ...

“I am a widow.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon! I ought to have known. I see you are in mourning.” ...

Mme. Armand moved into the Logis that same evening. At Mme. de la Vaudraye’s express recommendation, she engaged as a servant the wife of the keeper of the ruins, Adèle, a big, fat, talkative woman, with hair on her upper lip, a stealthy eye and quick, blunt manners. Bouquetot, her husband, was to sleep at the manor-house; and their son, Antoine, who had just left his regiment, would do the heavy work and attend to the garden.

* * *

And life began, the hard, cruel, despairing life of those who have no one to love them and no one whom they can love.

There was no consolation for Gilberte, after her mother’s death. What saved her was the necessity to act, to act continually, to make decisions, to give orders, in short, to exercise her will. She had to shake off her natural inclination for dreaming and listlessness, to break herself of the passive habits due to the existence which she had led till then. Things went so badly at the manor-house until she realized the task that lay before her, the domestic duties were so irregularly performed, there was so much fuss and disorder, that she was compelled to look after her own housekeeping.

She found it difficult indeed to word the first reprimand:

“Adèle, I do wish you would serve lunch punctually!”

And she added, immediately:

“Of course, I mean, when possible.”

As ill-luck would have it, it was not “possible” for three days running; and Gilberte had to resolve to speak seriously. On the fourth day, she went down to the kitchen, very quickly, so as not to let her indignation cool on the stairs:

“Adèle! It’s one o’clock and”....

“Well, what of it?” the fat woman broke in.

Gilberte stopped short, hesitated, blushed and stammered:

“I should so much like to have luncheon served at half-past twelve exactly!”

From that day forward, the meals were punctually prepared.

Her victory gave her self-assurance. She had the accounts brought to her daily, although her inspection was confined to ascertaining the cost of things and checking the additions.

With Gilberte’s affection and open nature, however, it was difficult for her to live absolutely cut off from her fellow-creatures, as she had first intended. True, she refused to make acquaintances; and her shyness was such that, after three months, she had not yet set foot in the streets of Domfront. But those who have been stricken by fate have a natural company of friends in the poor, the wretched, the destitute, the outcast; and her heart could not avoid the sort of friendship built upon adversity.

Between Gilberte and the first beggar who crossed the threshold of the Logis there was more than an alms and a thank-you: there was the delight of giving on one side and, on the other, gratitude for the smile and the good grace of her who gave. Nor could it be otherwise. Even if Gilberte had not had that pretty, fair hair which frolicked around her face like little flickering flames, nor those gentle lips, nor those pink cheeks which gave her face the freshness of a flower, she would still have been bewitchingly beautiful, thanks to her blue eyes, which were always a little dewy, as though tears were playing in them, and always smiling, even at the times of her deepest sadness. And her look, her figure, all her delicate and attractive personality breathed such touching purity that the most indifferent were lapped in it as in the soft caresses of a balmy breeze.

Her charm was made up of goodness, simplicity and, above all, innocence, that innocence which is unaware of its own existence, which knows nothing of life, which suspects no evil and which does not see the traps laid for it, nor the hypocrisy that surrounds it, nor the envy which it inspires.

La Bonne Demoiselle was the name by which the poor called her, thus correcting, by a sort of common instinct, the style which circumstances had compelled her to adopt. And, in all the garrets of Domfront, in all the cabins and cottages of the neighbourhood, people spoke of la Bonne Demoiselle of the Logis, of la Bonne Demoiselle who mourned her husband’s memory and smiled upon the poor.

Her gentle smile worked many a miracle in that little world, dispelled many a hatred, stifled many a rebellious impulse, healed many a sore. Men and women consulted her, inexperienced girl that she was, and, what was more, followed her advice.

A mother came one day, with her baby in her arms. She told the tragedy of her life, spoke of an elopement, a desertion. Gilberte understood nothing of her story. Yet the mother, in an hour, went away consoled.

Young girls came and asked her opinion about getting married; women came and enlarged upon their domestic quarrels; others came and told her things that bewildered her. All these problems, all these cases of conscience Mme. Armand, la Bonne Demoiselle, solved with her innocence, the innocence of a child that, knowing nothing, knows more than they who know everything.

One evening, Adèle brought her housekeeping-book. Gilberte gravely added the column and initialed it.

“But madame is not even looking to see what I bought and how much I paid.”

Gilberte blushed:

“You see.... I don’t know much about it.... So I leave it to you.... Besides, I have no reason to suspect you....”

There must have been something in the tone of her words, something special in her air and attitude; at any rate, the old woman was seized with extraordinary excitement, and, flinging herself on her knees before her mistress, cried:

“Oh, it’s a shame to cheat a person like you, ma’am! I can have no heart at all, nor my great rascal of a Bouquetot either!... Why, you must be an angel from Heaven not to see that everybody’s robbing you: the grocer, the baker, the butcher, and I most of all!... Just look at my book: a bunch of carrots, thirty sous; a wretched chicken, six francs fifteen sous....”

She emptied her purse on the table:

“There! Fifty or sixty francs I’ve done you out of, all in one month!... But I stopped the other day, I couldn’t do it, it broke my heart to see you like that, so trusting....”

“My poor Adèle,” whispered Gilberte, greatly moved.

“And then ... and then,” continued the woman, in a low voice, with bent head, “I have something else to confess.... But I dare not: it’s so shameful.... Listen.... Mme. de la Vaudraye ... well, she put me here to tell her all about you: what you did; if you received any letters; if you talked to gentlemen.... And, in the morning, when I went to do my shopping, I used to go to her ... and tell her what I saw.... Oh, there was nothing wrong to tell, for you are a real saint!... But, all the same.... Forgive me!”

The old servant’s confusion was touching. Gilberte gently raised her from the floor and said:

“There, we’ll say no more about it. But why is Mme. de la Vaudraye interested in me and my doings?”

“Goodness knows! She’s always poking her nose in everywhere and wants to manage everything at Domfront and every one to obey her. And you don’t know how they talk about you here! There’s no lack of gossip, I can tell you!”

“About me?”

“Yes. They want to know where you come from, who M. Armand was, all sorts of things! Then Mme. de la Vaudraye speechifies about you in her drawing-room. Just think, you’re her tenant; and she’s the only one who has spoken to you!... And then I’ve guessed something else....”

“What’s that, Adèle?”

“Well, you are rich and a widow; I’m sure she’s after you as a daughter-in-law.... That I’d take my oath on!... Oh, she has her head screwed on her shoulders! A fine lady like you for her penniless beggar of a son, a good-for-nothing who can’t put his hand to anything!...”

Gilberte listened to her in utter confusion. Wasn’t it possible to remain hidden and unknown? Were there really people who spied on others, who tried to fathom the mystery of their lives and actually plotted against them?

But Adèle said, in a big, fond voice:

“Don’t you worry yourself, ma Bonne Demoiselle. I’m here and I’ll look after you and look after your money. Oh, the grocer and the butcher and the rest had best mind what they’re about!... You let me be: you won’t be overcharged any more.... And then Bouquetot is there and my son Antoine: they’re decent fellows both ... and fell in love with you at once ... because ... because there’s something different about you ... something that makes people love you ... in spite of themselves ... with all their hearts....”

III

THE UNKNOWN

EVERY day, when her household duties were done, Gilberte walked in her garden. This was her hour of recreation. But a sweeter hour followed, which she allotted to dreaming.

High up, on the left, on a jutting promontory, was a clearing where stood the ruins of a little summer-house. The view from here extended, over undulating plains, to the dark heights of Mortain. On the right, the other side of the valley was a wall of red rocks, clad in broom and fir-trees. It was a landscape of illimitable distances and, at the same time, tender and familiar through the homeliness of this little glen, a landscape which had all the wild and rugged poetry of a Breton moor....

The daylight waned early in those winter months. Gilberte waited until the veil of night smothered its last glimmers. Sometimes, the sun’s reflections would linger on the motionless clouds. Then the darkness seemed to come from every side, to rise from the river, to fall from the overcast sky, to ooze from the earth in thick mists. Then Gilberte would go indoors.

But, one evening, at that murky moment of twilight, she saw, on the opposite slope, a human form issuing from a hollow among the rocks and vanishing behind a tree.

She would hardly have paid attention to it, if, on the next day, when her eyes turned in that direction on returning from her walk, she had not perceived, in the same place, the same form as on the day before: a man’s figure, obviously, but so well hidden that it was impossible for her to distinguish the least detail of his face or dress.

On the day after that, he was not there; but he was there on the following day and almost every day afterwards.

Gilberte soon noticed that he slipped through the fir-trees a little before her arrival and went away soon after she was gone.

Then was he there for her? She did not ask herself this question, but, all unwittingly, she was pleased at the fact that some one was there, dreaming doubtless like herself, some one whom she did not know, who was not seeking to know her and of whom she thought only as an invisible companion, a more or less real ghost, a freak of her imagination. She had not the least curiosity concerning others and would never have supposed that any one could have the least curiosity concerning her. He was there for the same reasons that brought her there, because it is good to see night blend with day and because that twilight hour is full of charm and peace.

And so she had a friend, a distant and inaccessible friend, from whom she would have hidden herself for ever, if he had dared to show himself or even let her see by a movement that he was there for her, but who did not frighten her, for the sole reason that he seemed to have no actual existence.

“Are you not afraid of catching cold, dear madame?”

It was Mme. de la Vaudraye, who took her by surprise one evening, at the summer-house and at once continued, in her affected voice:

“I owe you a thousand apologies. The merest politeness demanded that I should pay you a visit, but what shall I say? I have so many duties, so many cares! I am the president of a number of charitable committees which take up all my time. Besides, I confess, I was afraid of appearing indiscreet. I so much dread to push myself forward! Still, I thought it was time to try and bring some diversion into the nun’s life which you are leading.”

“You are too kind,” said Gilberte, touched by this solicitude.

“I felt, dear madame, that your days must be so dull. Your evenings especially must seem endless. How do you manage to fill them?”

They had returned to the Logis. A good fire warmed the boudoir in which Gilberte liked best to sit. The lamp was lighted. There was some music on the piano. The table was heaped with books and papers.

“You see, madame, I play and read: I read a great deal.”

“Novels, I expect!” said the visitor, with a titter. “May I look?... What have we here? An atlas ... manuals of history ... and literature ... selected essays ... memoirs! Are you superintending somebody’s education?”

“My own,” said Gilberte, laughing. “It has been a little neglected; and, as I have plenty of time....”

“But many of the books are in English ... in German even....”

“I know English and German.”

“Quite a learned person! But how well you would get on with my son! He is so studious and cultured! He writes for the Paris papers.... Not under his own name, of course: he would never consent to commit the name of La Vaudraye to an occupation which, after all, is only an amusement. He quite agrees with me on that question ... as on every other.... Why don’t you come to us one evening? We have a few friends who are pleased to make my drawing-room their daily meeting-place.... Everybody is dying to see you, Guillaume most of all....”

His mother’s description of young Guillaume de la Vaudraye was hardly of a nature to charm Gilberte from her isolation. She found an excuse.

“You are making a mistake,” cried Mme. de la Vaudraye, who was irritated by her refusal. “Good friends are a necessity: they protect you against evil tongues.”

“Evil tongues?”

“Yes, yes, you can understand that one can’t live as you do without attracting comment in a small town. People ask themselves—and not without some justice, as you must admit—the reason of your voluntary imprisonment. All the more so because, as I hear, your servant, Adèle, keeps a silent tongue in her head; and that sets public opinion against you. Lastly, they say....”

“What?”

“Well, they say that you are leading such a secret existence because....”

“Because what?”

Mme. de la Vaudraye hesitated, or rather seemed to hesitate, and then blurted out:

“Because you do not live alone.”

She rose, thinking that Gilberte must be crushed under this accusation. But Gilberte, casting about ingenuously for what her visitor could have meant, repeated:

“Not alone! Well, of course not, as Adèle is here, with her husband and her son!”

“There, don’t be alarmed, child,” concluded Mme. de la Vaudraye, in a patronizing little way. “That is only so much talk and gossip, which I shall know how to put down, if you will help me. It only wants a small sacrifice. For instance, I shall be making the collection at High Mass, on Sunday: promise me to come. It’s a promise, isn’t it?” she said, as she went away.

Gilberte would much rather have stayed quietly at home; but, as she had been told that that was impossible, she gave up the idea:

“It seems to hurt people,” she said to herself.

And, on the Sunday morning, when the bells rang for mass, she left the Logis for the first time.

She felt, in the crowded high-street, as though she were awaking from a dream of peace and silence, so intense was her dislike of bustle and noise. There were people at the windows, people at the shop-doors, people in the church-porch; and all those people were watching her, staring at her and whispering as she passed.

The church was a refuge, despite the crowd that filled it and despite the excitement provoked by her presence. Every one was astounded at her youthfulness, dazzled by her beauty. When she walked down the nave again, a murmur of admiration rippled through the rows of worshippers. But, when she reached the holy-water basin, an incident occurred that delayed her for a few seconds. Three men had rushed forward. And, with one movement, three hands were dipped into the marble basin and held out to her. She lowered her veil and went on.

Outside the church, the crowd stood waiting for her. Gilberte hurried along, feeling her shyness returning in the sunlight. Her one idea was to get back to the Logis, back into the shade. But there was a pastry-cook’s shop at the end of the high-street; she caught sight of the window crammed with dainty custards and many-coloured cakes; and, as she was not prepared for such a temptation, she succumbed.

Slowly and hesitatingly, she made her choice. The shop-woman did up the parcel; Gilberte took it and moved away. But at the door she stopped, timidly. A group of street-boys was standing outside.

There they were, with their hands in their pockets, like loafers feasting their eyes on an unusual sight. She went out. They ran on either side of her, making a great din with their wooden shoes. Gilberte suffered tortures.

Suddenly, she heard cries and laughter behind her. She turned round. A young man, whom she recognized as one of the three who offered her the holy water, had darted into the midst of her escort and was dispersing it with uplifted cane. She bowed her head, in sign of thanks, and continued on her way.

An hour later, as she was finishing lunch, Adèle brought her an enormous sheaf of flowers: roses, white lilac and camellias. A peasant had handed them to the servant without a word of explanation.

“But I know who sent them,” said Adèle. “It can only be M. Beaufrelant. He has the finest hot-houses in the district; he is mad on flowers. Madame must have seen him in church: a tall, thin man, with whiskers.”

Bouquetot, Adèle’s husband, entered:

“An old woman has brought this letter for madame.”

Gilberte opened the envelope. It contained a thousand-franc note and a few words written in a copper-plate hand on pink note-paper:

“To Mme. Armand, for her poor.”

“A bank-note! It must be that moneybags of a M. le Hourteulx. Let me see the hand-writing.... Yes, that’s right; I was in service with him.... Oh, my fine fellow, if you think that, because you possess hundreds and thousands!... Not a word.... I know what’s what!”

Bouquetot said to his wife:

“I met Mme. Duval, the chair-attendant, in the town just now. She told me that M. Beaufrelant and M. le Hourteulx were standing by the holy-water basin in church this morning; and young Simare as well. And then the barber told me that young Simare followed madame and drove away the street-boys who ran after her.”

Gilberte thought for a moment and said:

“Go to Mme. de la Vaudraye, Adèle, tell her how this money and these flowers came into my hands and ask her to oblige me by returning them to the senders. But the poor must not be the losers; and here is another thousand-franc note which I beg that she will distribute as she thinks best.”

That afternoon, Gilberte remained pensive. Those two presents surprised her. Her ignorance of social usages did not allow her to see any indelicacy or indiscretion in the way in which they were offered; and yet she felt that there was something that should not have been done.

“What does it mean?” she wondered, with a vague anxiety. “What do they want with me?”

It was the outside world trying to insinuate itself into her peaceful home, into her independent life: the world with its sordid calculations, its intrigues, its vanities, its stealthy encroachments upon those who seek solitude, its instinctive jealousy of those who are able to do without it.

At nightfall, she walked to the ruined summer-house. The stranger was there, among the rocks opposite. She recovered all her serenity. And not for a second did the idea cross her mind that he might be one of the three who had forced their attentions upon her.

IV

AN EVENING AT MME. DE LA VAUDRAYE’S

IT would be wearisome to describe the long series of moves and machinations, the whole comedy of affectation and pretended solicitude which Mme. de la Vaudraye employed to induce Gilberte to come and see her. One day, at last, Gilberte promised, on the understanding that there would be no one there but the regular visitors to the house.

And, in the evening, Adèle, carrying a lantern and muttering between her teeth, accompanied her through the deserted streets.

It was a very modest house that was occupied by her who remained the first lady of Domfront despite her shattered fortunes. No show, no comfort, hardly room for the mother and son; but there was a salon, a sumptuous salon, a salon, to which everything had been sacrificed, a salon that enabled Mme. de la Vaudraye to declare, with pride:

“I have a salon.”

And the townspeople nodded their heads in chorus:

“Mme. de la Vaudraye has a salon.”

In so saying, they had in mind not only the costly furniture heaped up in that one room, but also the shining lights of the town who adorned it with their presence. You were really nobody at Domfront if you did not form part of the salon of Mme. de la Vaudraye.

In its essence and as Gilberte saw it, the salon consisted of an old-oak chest and an Empire sideboard, of the Bottentuit and Charmeron couples and their five young ladies, of M. and Mme. Lartiste and their son, of Mlle. du Bocage, of M. Beaufrelant, M. Hourteulx and Messrs. Simare, father and son, of a Louis XV clock, of a lacquered glass-case, and of a set of chairs and armchairs upholstered in crimson silk.

A great silence, composed of eager curiosity, admiration and envy, greeted Gilberte’s entrance. The hostess at once made the introductions, or rather chiselled them out in elaborate phrases. Gilberte bowed.

“And my son? Where is my dear Guillaume?”

He was extracted from a small side-room.

“Dear Mme. Armand, here is my Guillaume, who is so anxious to make your acquaintance.”

Guillaume de la Vaudraye was not at all bad-looking, with a very good figure; but he had a sullen expression and his manners seemed constrained. He gave a bow and vanished.

There was an attempt at general conversation, which fell very flat. People exchanged distressful looks and dared not raise their voices. Gilberte did not utter a word.

Then, to break the ice, a rush was made for the principal person present, the last resource of drawing-rooms. He always lords it in the place of honour, displaying the expansive smile of his large yellow teeth. He looks like a squatting Hindu idol; he is well-groomed, shiny and pretentious. He is the centre of social life, the ever-ready rescuer, the life and soul of the company, the master of ceremonies, the master of the revels, the vanisher of intolerable silence. And none can contest his supremacy, for he alone is capable of making so much noise without becoming exhausted and of making more noise by himself than all the rest put together. The specimen in Mme. de la Vaudraye’s drawing-room was signed, “PLEYEL.”

It was as though the parts had been allotted beforehand. Two groups were formed: the audience and the performers. Gilberte found herself seated between Mme. Charmeron, who was famed for her persistent dumbness and distinction, and M. Simare junior, the best-dressed and most dissipated young man in the town. He went twice a year to Paris and was looked upon as a master of wit and satire. As a matter of fact, he started chaffing at once:

“Ah, the overture of The Bronze Horse by a Demoiselle Charmeron and a Demoiselle Bottentuit! That’s the invariable first piece here. Ten years ago, it seems, it was played by Mme. Bottentuit and her sister, Mme. Charmeron; to-day, their heiresses are following in their footsteps. Observe how beautifully the two young ladies hold themselves. Their ambition is to realize the back view of a pair of sticks. They practise it for four hours every morning....”

When the last chords had been banged out, he continued:

“Now, the little Charmeron girl will move off on the right, taking her stool with her, and the little Bottentuit girl will slide to the middle of the key-board. From the performer that she was she will become the accompanist of papa. There, what did I tell you? It’s all settled beforehand! Look out! Maître Bottentuit, the attorney, the drawing-room howler, is going off, going off, I say.... I defy you to make out a word he sings.... People have been trying for ten years; and no one has ever succeeded.... Excuse me ... got to stop ... can’t hear myself talk ... the wretch is bawling too loud....”

After Maître Bottentuit, Mlle. du Bocage—a little old maid whose mouth opened so wide that you could have dived down her throat—struck up the duet in Mireille, supported by M. Lartiste the elder, an old man, with a clean-shaven face, whose mouth, on the contrary, remained hermetically closed, with the results that both parts of the duet—not only the cooing roulades of the woman, but also the frenzied appeals of the man, his prayers, his promises, his metamorphoses into a bird and a butterfly—seemed to issue from the yawning throat of Mireille, that gulf where you saw a host of little pieces of mechanism madly at work. The loving couple had a great success.

“M. le Hourteulx next,” said young Simare. “Our millionaire is going to sing for you, madame, for, you know, he has been smitten with a passion since he saw you in church; a passion shared, of course, by his enemy Beaufrelant, for the two men always form the same wishes, so as to have the pleasure of thwarting each other. It’s a long-standing hatred: le Hourteulx was married once; and it seems that Beaufrelant....”

Simare bent over towards Gilberte and whispered a few words in her ear.

Young Lartiste, who owed his fame as a great actor to his name and to his name alone, was reserved for the end.

“No one recites like young Lartiste,” people said at Domfront.

And, from the first words that he spoke, everybody watched Gilberte, to enjoy her amazement. Unfortunately, Simare was continuing his more or less decorous reflexions; and Gilberte, although not always catching his exact meaning, felt so uncomfortable that she did not listen to young Lartiste at all and forgot to applaud at the striking passages, an omission that was put down to her bad taste.

“Mme. de la Vaudraye is furious,” said Simare. “Her son’s gone. And I expect she jolly well lectured him about making himself agreeable to you. By Jove, when you’re a mother, you have to think of your son’s future. But Guillaume making himself agreeable is a sight that was never yet seen! Besides, he looks down upon us too much to remain in the drawing-room. Just fancy, a writer like him!... Oh, I say, madame, look at the eyes Beaufrelant’s making at you! Beaufrelant is the Don Juan of Domfront. No one can resist him. They even say ... but I don’t know if I ought.... Pooh, you have a fan ... if you want to blush....”

And he again leant over towards Gilberte.

She rose from her seat at the first words. Mme. de la Vaudraye came running up to her:

“I am sure that that scapegrace of a Simare is saying all sorts of things that he shouldn’t.”

She drew her aside:

“Be careful with him, my child,” she said. “I can see through his designs: he is trying to compromise you. He is head over ears in debt and hunting for a fortune.... But haven’t you seen Guillaume? Wait for me here, I’ll bring him to you.”

Simare came up to Gilberte:

“I must apologize to you, madame; I shocked you just now.”

“No, no,” stammered Gilberte, driven to her wits’ end by this persistency, “only I thought I ought not to....”

He interrupted her:

“It was I who ought not. I couldn’t help it: I was talking, talking a little at random, lest I should say what I have no right to say, what lies deep down within myself, one of those involuntary sentiments....”

“I am so sorry, Mme. Armand,” cried the hostess, returning. “My son was a little tired and has gone up to his room.”

The musical and literary evening was over. But the resources of the la Vaudraye salon did not end there. Its frequenters prided themselves on knowing how to talk. And the conversation went by rule, of course, as everything went by rule in this society which, by the almost daily repetition of the same acts, had established habits as strong as immutable laws.

The licensed talkers were M. Beaufrelant, who, they said, cultivated the flowers of rhetoric with the same zeal and the same success as the flowers of the soil; Mme. de la Vaudraye, who specialized in literary discussions; M. Lartiste, who, as a printer, was naturally marked out for the loftiest philosophical speculations; M. Simare the elder, a remarkable spinner of anecdotes; and, lastly, M. Charmeron and his sister-in-law, Mme. Bottentuit, who found, in their morbid need for contradicting and disputing with each other, an inexhaustible source of opinions, witticisms and banter. Outside these privileged and, so to speak, official protagonists, it was very seldom that any one ventured to open his mouth.

Gilberte, who was beginning to feel terribly bored, listened without a word, which was taken for a sign of admiring deference. The truth is that this oratorical joust surprised her greatly. All these people, speaking turn and turn about, seemed to be pursuing so many different conversations, each of them thinking only of shining in the department that had devolved upon himself. M. Lartiste, who had talked his best on capital punishment, the subject in which he excelled, was answered by Mme. de la Vaudraye with a vigorous parallel between the respective merits of Victor Hugo and Lamartine, which parallel was duly refuted in a lyrical outburst from M. Beaufrelant on the bulbs of the double dahlia.

And the utmost seriousness presided over all this incoherence, each disputant confounding, with deadly earnestness, the interlocutor in whom he saw such another indomitable as himself. And the dumb circle of hearers listened with nods and grunts of approval, as though these strange discussions had excited them to the highest pitch.

“Well ... and you?” said Mme. de la Vaudraye to M. Simare the elder, at the exact moment when the ardour of the tourney seemed about to wane. “Are you not in form to-day?”

M. Simare, the anecdotist, smiled. His strong point lay in saying nothing until he was questioned; and his dry silence, rich in promise, lent enormous value to the one anecdote to which he treated you each evening, after carefully preparing, polishing, repolishing and chipping it like a precious stone. Everybody burst out laughing before he even opened his mouth: it was understood from his manner that the story would be a little ... naughty.

He said:

“I do not know if I can speak. There are young ears present.”

A movement on the part of the mothers, a glance; and the five young ladies disappeared “without seeming to.”

He insisted:

“All the same, I feel bound to warn you that it is a very risqué story. I shall call a spade a spade: local colour demands it.”

“Go on, M. Simare!” said somebody. “We are all married people here!”

Gilberte was sitting in the front row of chairs, understanding nothing of the departure of the young girls nor of all this preamble and in absolute ignorance of what was looming ahead.

M. Simare walked up to her, bowed to her gallantly, like a bull-fighter dedicating his next feat of prowess to the most prominent person present and sat down four feet in front of her. And he began:

“The setting first, madame. Picture the skirt of a wood: dramatis personæ, Fanchon and her friend Colin, who is whispering sweet nothings in her ear, very much in her ear, and ... but wait! At no great distance, in the middle of the wood, his reverence the rector is strolling, reading his breviary; and his walk takes him in the direction of our young rustics.... He comes.... He comes nearer and nearer.... Do you see the picture, madame?”

“Yes, yes,” said Gilberte, earnestly, like a child who is interested in a fairy-tale. “What next?”

“The sun darts his rays through the branches, from the patches of blue sky....”

He continued his description at length, talked of the rector and the birds and the flowers and the cool shade of the trees; and, strange to say, there was not another word about Fanchon and Colin.

“M. Simare is a little discursive this evening,” whispered somebody. “He is not coming to the point as quickly as usual.”

In fact, he was veering away from it, with his eyes fixed on Gilberte, who listened eagerly and who repeated, at intervals:

“And then? What next?”

Thereupon, he got more and more entangled in the poetic stroll of the rector, who kept on walking and never seemed to come as far as Fanchon and Colin. And it was Gilberte who, at last, exclaimed:

“But what became of Colin and Fanchon?”

Then the old boy made a decisive gesture:

“I can’t, I can’t tell you.... No, I won’t tell you....”

Everybody rose. Everybody protested.

M. Simare took refuge in laughter:

“Well, no, I won’t tell you.”

“But why not?”

“Why not? I don’t know! It’s her eyes.... There are words one can’t utter when one looks at her, there are things one can’t tell.”

He was no longer laughing. The others were silent. And he continued:

“Look at her eyes. They gaze at you so softly, so innocently.... All the time that I was talking my nonsense, I wanted to invent something for her, something about saints and angels and a good little girl who loves her mother and only thinks of pleasing her and is happy from morning till night....”

V

THE SUITORS

GILBERTE went to more of Mme. de la Vaudraye’s evenings: not that she liked them much; but she did not wish to have it thought that she disliked them.

And her presence delighted all the frequenters of the salon, the most cross-grained ladies and the most indifferent men alike. It was a curious influence exercised by that mere child; and she owed it neither to her experience—for what did she know of life?—nor to her tact—for what aim had she in view?—but to an inexplicable charm which affected all who came near her and which, at the same time, protected her against them. Her innocence was a greater attraction than any subtlety or intellectual charm and defended her to better purpose than prudence would have done or cleverness.

Old Simare was mad about her. Mme. Bottentuit told her all the secrets of her home life. Mme. Charmeron confided to her that she was broken-hearted at having nothing but daughters, but that she had not given up hope yet. Mlle. du Bocage hid her head on Gilberte’s shoulder, wept and told her all her old-maidenly disappointments and regrets.

“You are the ornament of my salon, Gilberte,” said Mme. de la Vaudraye.

She was not jealous of her. Gilberte, with her exquisite compassion, had guessed that the former lady of the Logis must still suffer from the ruin of her fortunes, must still feel how stunted and narrow was her life; and she showed her more attention than she did to any other.

Out of kindness to the mother she even tried to win the son’s sympathies; but here she encountered a medley of such shyness and rudeness, so unlovable a nature and so marked a determination to repel her advances and treat her as he treated the other frequenters of the salon that Gilberte was quite discomfited.

“Do not be discouraged,” said the mother. “He is a little unsociable; but he is so full of good qualities.”

Nevertheless, Gilberte once heard her mutter between her teeth:

“What a bear that boy is!”

And she heard on all sides that mother and son did not agree.

The salon underwent a change. There were as many commonplaces uttered as ever; but those who spoke them did so with less smug importance than before. People were less sure of themselves. The talented amateurs in singing and piano-playing sought for shades of expression and feeling. Lastly, the order of the concert became “subject to alterations” and the performers no longer wore the air of automata obeying predestined laws. There were asides in the conversation; people talked among themselves, for the pleasure of talking and in accordance with their various sympathies.

One evening, Beaufrelant drew Gilberte into a corner and said:

“I am mad, madame, do you hear? I am mad. I care for nothing, I am indifferent to my flowers, it is you all the time. I am free: my name, my life are yours; give me some hope....”

The next day, le Hourteulx made his declaration:

“Life has become a burden to me. If you do not take pity on me, madame, I shall cease to exist.... But I can hardly believe that you will reject me.... Do you dislike me?... I am a widower and well-off, you know....”

That was the only dark spot that troubled Gilberte’s serenity: the more or less discreet attentions which all those men paid her. Simare the younger went far more cleverly to work and tried to inspire confidence with a pretence of delicacy by which Gilberte allowed herself to be taken in. But Beaufrelant and Le Hourteulx showed no pity: they pursued her relentlessly, speaking to her, not unnaturally, as to a woman who knows what life is and who could not well take offence at a declaration or even at the terms in which it was made.

Poor Gilberte did not take offence, but she was very much surprised; and the sighs and transports of those two men of forty bored her terribly. She avoided them and she also had to avoid young Lartiste, who tried the effect of poetry and fired the most passionate verses of Musset and Verlaine at her; the brother too of the Demoiselles Bottentuit, a schoolboy who was only let out on Thursdays and Sundays and who, the third time he saw her, threatened to kill himself at her feet; and lastly a cousin of Mlle. du Bocage, who was engaged to the elder Charmeron girl and who offered to break off the marriage and abandon a very good match if it caused her the faintest annoyance.

She no longer enjoyed at the Logis the atmosphere of peace and isolation so dear to her. Adèle had to defend the door, with the vigilance of a watch-dog, against the daring suitors who tried to obtain admission to her mistress upon some pretext:

“Madame is at home to nobody; I have positive instructions.”

The old servant saw through the disguise of M. le Hourteulx, who appeared dressed up as a beggar, and of Beaufrelant, who, in cap and blouse, came round with a green-grocer’s barrow.

Gilberte could not go for a stroll in her garden without seeing the figure of one or other of those importunate gentlemen on the right, in the next garden which ran from the castle down to the river. At nightfall, she was conscious of shadowy forms prowling round the manor-house. She felt herself spied upon on every side, stalked like a beast of the chase.

It was Easter Sunday. After dinner, Adèle and her husband went to the fair, just outside the town. Gilberte was left alone.

It had been raining; and the fresh smell of wet leaves and moist earth came through the open window of the boudoir which she had made into her study. The book which she was reading in an absent-minded way dropped to her lap and she sat dreaming, with her gaze lost in the blackness of the trees. And, quite without reason—for the least sound would have struck her ear—she was overcome with an indescribable sense of dread, which increased from moment to moment. The silence seemed to her unnatural and awful. The darkness was heavy with menace; and she could not take her eyes from it, sat spellbound by the unknown peril which she felt was there.

A recollection doubled her fears. On the evening before at Mme. de la Vaudraye’s, a turn in the conversation had led her to say that her servants were going to this fair. So they knew that she was all alone at the Logis.

Her one thought was to close the window, fasten down the shutters and place an obstacle between herself and the snares that were being laid for her in the threatening darkness; and yet she dared not stir, as though the least movement would have exposed her to immediate dangers.... But what dangers?

She made an effort and rose from her chair. At the same moment, a head appeared and a man strode across the balcony and sprang into the room. It was Simare.

The revulsion of feeling was such that she almost felt inclined to laugh. Wearily, she sat down and murmured:

“Oh, monsieur, you ought not to have done this!... I should never have thought it of you....”

He flung himself on his knees:

“Do not judge me unheard.... I am not master of myself.... I have to go away for a month ... and I wanted to see you ... to tell you what I feel, what I suffer.... Oh, you don’t know how your indifference has tortured me.... My sadness, my admiration, my hopes, my emotion, when in your presence: you have understood none of these ... but then you never do understand.... At this very moment, when I am here, at your knees, when I am imploring you, when I am proclaiming my sorrow and my obsession, I feel that my words do not reach you. And yet they must. You must, you shall know what I have to say to you.... Listen to me....”

But Gilberte would not listen. Although her extreme innocence had preserved her at first contact with the world, nevertheless she was beginning to see a glimmer of the meaning of many things; and she was frightened of the words that were coming. No, she would not hear them from the lips of this man, she would not allow this man to be the first to speak them in her ear. She had a sudden intuition of their importance and their sweetness and their magic; and she felt that it was almost a contamination to hear them.

She entreated him:

“Be quiet.... I shall be so grateful if you will....”

“No, no,” he cried, “I must speak. Ever since I have known you, the words I have to say have been on my lips, suffocating me.... Gilberte, Gilberte, I....”

She gave a desperate glance, the glance of a victim which does not know how to defend itself and awaits the blow that is about to fall. He stammered:

“Oh, your eyes ... your eyes ...!”

He remained on his knees, humble and undecided, and repeated, in a low voice:

“Your eyes ... yes ... my father told me ... child’s eyes that put one off....”

He rose and struck his fist upon the table:

“No, after all, I will not allow myself to be thwarted. I mean to speak and I shall speak.... If your eyes prevent me, well, I sha’n’t see your eyes!”

He went to the lamp and, with a sudden movement, put it out.

Gilberte gave a scream. She tried to run away, stumbled over a chair and fell. She tried to call out; and her voice died away in her throat.

Then, powerless, she stirred no more.

He seized her hand and raised it to his lips.

She made a weak attempt to release herself, but strength failed her.

She said, simply:

“Please, monsieur ... I have never done you any harm.... I have always been kind to you.... Please....”

His hand slacked its grasp. They remained opposite each other. What was he going to say to her? At her wits’ end, with her heart wildly beating, she tried, through the darkness, through the great, impenetrable silence that enshrouded the two of them, to see Simare’s face, to read his tumultuous thoughts, his will.... A few seconds passed....

Then he said:

“I beg your pardon.... I am a scoundrel.... I wanted to force you to take my name, to share my existence.... It was cowardly and base of me.... Still, there was more in me, believe me, than wicked designs.... Oh, I hear your heart beating ... do not tremble!... You will never be in danger from any one ... it is not only your eyes that protect you: there is the sound of your voice, there is your silence, there is the air you breathe, your mere presence.... Forgive me....”

He went away, She dimly saw him cross the window-rail and presently heard the sound of his steps as he walked down the gravel-path in the garden.

Gilberte rushed to the door. She could not have stayed for another instant in the solitude of that room.

It was an intolerable agony, of which she felt the grip even more now that Simare was no longer there. Where should she go? To Mme. de la Vaudraye’s? She remembered vaguely that it was not one of her “evenings,” because of the fair. No matter. She wanted people, lights, bustle, men and women in whose presence she could master her fears and pluck up courage.

She ran to her bedroom, put on her hat and cloak.... But no, she dared not go out....

A noise came from the square in front of the Logis, on the town side; the noise of an altercation, of a struggle. She drew back the curtains. Two men were fighting under her windows. In her fright, she flew to the bolt, locked herself in and crouched down in the furthest corner of her room. Her instinct, her weakness impelled her to hide herself, to know nothing of what was happening, to wait.... But the din increased. There were shouts and moans.

Then she was ashamed of her cowardice. It was impossible for her to continue in that nervous inactivity. She wanted to interfere, to help, if there were still time. Bravely, she opened the door, went down the stairs, walked out into the square and up to the combatants.

By the light of the lamp she recognized Beaufrelant and Le Hourteulx.

Rolling on the ground, covered with mud, hatless, their clothes all disarranged, they were fighting with a sort of mad rage, with the stubbornness of two mortal enemies rejoicing in an opportunity of vengeance long deferred. They struck at each other in turns, collared each other, bashed each other’s faces with their fists, wrestled violently. And this amid insults and exclamations of triumph:

“Here, you villain, take that!”

“One for you!”

“Ah, my fine fellow, you caught it this time! How did that strike you?”

And they called Gilberte to witness, like the queen of a tournament in whose honour two of her knights were breaking a lance:

“What do you think of that, madame?”

“Got in there with my left, madame!”

“Ah, he was looking out for you, the scoundrel!”

“Oh, you blackguard, you were prowling round her house!”

Abandoning all attempts at interference, she turned to move away. They rose with difficulty and followed her, each hustling his rival as he went on trying to get rid of him. But the heat of the struggle brought them to the ground again; and she ran away.

The first street to which her steps led her came out in front of the church. The La Vaudrayes’ house was close by; and she hastened to it.

No one answered when she rang the bell. Still, there was a light in the drawing-room. She tapped at one of the windows. Some one came to the door. It was Guillaume de la Vaudraye.

“You, madame!” he exclaimed.

“Where’s your mother? Where’s your mother?” she panted.

“My mother is at Caen, on business; I am alone in the house.”

She walked to the drawing-room unsteadily and sank into a chair.

“What is the matter? Why are you here?”

She whispered, in a broken voice:

“They came.... They are following me.... I am frightened of them....”

“Simare, was it?... And Le Hourteulx, I suppose ... and Beaufrelant....”

“Yes ... so I daren’t go back....”

“But Adèle ... and her husband?”

“Gone to the fair.”

He thought for a moment and said:

“I will go and fetch them. It’s some way off. Take a rest until we come: you need it.”

Gilberte, utterly exhausted, fell asleep.

Adèle woke her. There was a taxi waiting for her. Guillaume did not show himself again.

VI

A NEW FRIEND

TWO days later Domfront could not believe its ears when it heard that all relations had been broken off between the La Vaudrayes on the one hand and Beaufrelant and Le Hourteulx on the other. The two no longer formed part of the salon.

“Oh, nonsense! Beaufrelant and Le Hourteulx, who have been there longer than anybody, who date back to the days when the La Vaudrayes saw their friends at the Logis: it’s impossible!”

“It’s quite true, for all that. I heard it from Mme. Duval, who is constantly at all three houses; and she saw the letters which Mme. de la Vaudraye wrote.”

“Well, you can say what you please, but it’s a great pity. M. le Hourteulx: such a fine voice! And M. Beaufrelant: such a brilliant talker! And have you heard the reason?”

“No, I can’t imagine.... If I hear the least thing, I’ll let you know.”

Gilberte was very much vexed when Adèle told her what had happened. She had no doubt that Guillaume de la Vaudraye had told his mother what he knew of the incident and she was distressed at being the cause of disagreement, complication and gossip.

“Perhaps,” she thought, “all this would not have come about if I had not been looked upon as married.”

And, as a matter of fact, she seemed, as a married woman, to be exposed to unpleasantness which she would have escaped in the position of a girl. Instead of the quiet which she had sought, she found, in the men’s behaviour, in their conversation, in their way of looking at her, in the persistency of their pursuit, a host of disturbing little annoyances which might well have troubled a mind less innocent than hers.

She went to Mme. de la Vaudraye, in the afternoon, and begged her to reconsider her decision.

“It is no use asking me,” cried Mme. de la Vaudraye. “I admit that, in writing to those two gentlemen, I did no more than my duty; but it was my son who pointed out to me how imperative that duty was.”

She was in a bad temper and, when all is said, with reason. No mistress of a house lightly gives up two individuals of the undoubted merit of M. Beaufrelant and M. le Hourteulx. She called out:

“Guillaume, Mme. Armand wants to talk to you!”

And, when her son entered the room, she went out.

Gilberte, who was always frightened by Guillaume’s obvious coldness and his excessive reserve, blushed as she made her request. Ought so much importance to be attached to an incident which the two gentlemen surely regretted and at which she could only laugh?

“My mother and I have no right to laugh at it,” he said. “We are responsible for all the people whom we introduce to you. If one of them treats you with disrespect, we must not expose you to meeting him here.”

“But how have they treated me with disrespect?... I assure you, I don’t see it....”

He looked at her, turned away his head and said, in a voice so abrupt that she could not make out whether his answer was full of contemptuous pity or affectionate admiration:

“It is the others, it is all of us who must see for you.... How can you be expected to see those things?”

He paused and continued:

“Are you very anxious to have those two boors back here?”

“For your mother’s sake, yes. I feel that the situation grieves her.”

“Why, of course,” he exclaimed, with cutting irony, “they are the two finest ornaments of her salon! How will the others do without them? How will they manage to rattle out the regulation tomfoolery? Will they ever be able to reach the required level of absurdity, affectation, stupidity and narrowness? Heavens, if we were a shade less dull and less inane, what a catastrophe!”

“It’s not right of you to talk like that, monsieur,” said Gilberte.

“What!” he said, taken aback.

“No, you ought not to laugh at what is a great pleasure to your mother. If some of her friends are a little eccentric, it is not for you to remark upon it.”

He rose, began to walk excitedly up and down the room and then, gradually mastering himself, came and sat opposite Gilberte again and said:

“You are right, madame. Besides, among all those people whom I cannot help criticizing, I have never heard you speak any but sensible, judicious, intelligent words, admirable for their kindness and wisdom. You always answer their most ridiculous questions as though they had asked you about the most interesting things in life. One word from you brings order and lucidity into the most absurd conversations.”

It was no longer the same voice. Usually so hard and dictatorial, it had become humble and grave. And his face, which was generally severe, bore an expression of infinite gentleness. One was no longer conscious of acrimony, constraint or distrust, but of the frank unreserve of a pent-up nature and of subdued melancholy.

Which of the two was the real Guillaume? Gilberte did not even ask herself the question, was only too happy to believe at once in the more attractive of the two images presented to her. And so she smiled upon this second Guillaume and said:

“Then ... those gentlemen ...?”

“Your two protégés shall resume the places which they fill so well. I insist, however, on a temporary exclusion as a punishment; for it is a punishment to Le Hourteulx and Beaufrelant. After that, if they are very good....”

“And you will be pleasant to them?”

“To them and to the others, at least as pleasant as I can.”

“Is it so very difficult?”

“Extremely! I can’t help it: I do not suffer fools gladly; they make me irritable and unjust. I have not your charity.”

“It only needs a little indulgence; think of your mother.”

“Oh, my mother, my mother!”

There was something sorrowful and harsh about this exclamation that struck Gilberte. She kept silence from a sense of delicacy. But Guillaume was passing through one of those periods when it is a relief to the over-burdened soul to confess its troubles:

“Have my mother and I ever understood each other? We have not an idea in common. Her wants are not mine, nor are mine hers. She offends all my tastes as I offend all hers. If I display so much bitterness against the merry-andrews who perform in her salon, it is because of her. I hate to see her countenancing their grimaces and posturings.”

She said nothing. He asked:

“You blame me for it, don’t you? Yes, yes, I feel it.... And how strange: in your presence, I too think that I am wrong and, while I was saying those things, I blushed as if I had uttered ugly thoughts!”

She laughed:

“They were not very pretty ones.”

“Never mind, I prefer you to know them. I do not wish to trick you into liking me. If I ever win your esteem, I want to do so without hypocrisy, without trying to hide my faults from you.”

No one had ever spoken to Gilberte with such seriousness and deference. She felt quite touched and, with a spontaneous movement, held out her hand to Guillaume:

“We shall be friends,” she said. “I am sure that we shall be friends.”

He was on the point of raising her small, gloved hand to his lips, but he restrained himself. And she went on:

“So this is the unsociable Guillaume de la Vaudraye! Will you believe that you quite frightened me with your surly ways? You did indeed!”

After this interview, Gilberte did two or three errands and returned to the Logis. It was drawing towards evening. She made for the summer-house and saw her dream-companion in the distance. She said to him, as though he could hear her and as though she felt bound to tell him the good news without delay:

“You know, I have a new friend!”

And Gilberte saw nothing extraordinary in this sudden friendship, based upon the exchange of a few sentences. Was she not one of those unsophisticated beings who always obey the unreflecting impulse of their hearts, who look you straight in the eyes and who do not think it out of place to tell people how they feel towards them?

And so, the next evening, she went to Mme. de la Vaudraye’s, quite happy at the thought of seeing her new friend again. A disappointment awaited her: Guillaume did not appear.

She went back next day. Guillaume came down to the drawing-room, bowed to her and seemed to take no further notice of her presence.

Thereupon, on the third day, while the others were listening to Mlle. du Bocage and M. Lartiste the elder in the duet from Mireille, Gilberte, finding that Guillaume was alone in the next room, went out to him. She at once saw that he tried to avoid her. Realizing this to be impossible, he gave a gesture of vexation and crossed his arms in an indifferent attitude.

“What about your promise?” she asked, playfully, but a little sadly. “You promised to make yourself pleasant to your enemies in the salon; and this is the best you can do! Am I not entitled to complain? Did we not shake hands as friends?”

He uncrossed his arms and his expression changed. Once again she felt the relaxation of a tense will, the immediate suppression of all resistance in this silent man whose square chin and inflexible eyes bore witness to his obstinacy.

“Good!” she said. “Capital! But you still look a little fierce.... That’s better!... And now, come along.”

He stopped her:

“Do not ask too much of me. You are so far above ordinary life, so inaccessible, that you can mix with those people and remain serene and untouched. I could only do so at the risk of deteriorating. One must make allowance for different temperaments. I shall be polite, that’s all.”

Then she stayed and they talked.

Often, after that, Gilberte had to go to him and open, as she said, the door of his prison-house, unbind his hands and deliver his captive soul. But she did it so easily that it amused them both.

“You have but to lift your little finger,” Guillaume would say, “to bring down the prison-walls.”

Under this uneven and rugged husk, Gilberte discovered the most exquisite and delicate of natures, a poet’s nature that was galled by all its surroundings, a child’s nature that his mother had kept in to the verge of pain. And it was often from the point of view of a child that Gilberte was glad to be with him. They would laugh at the least thing, with that childish laughter, which is so good just because it has no excuse except our need of laughter. They longed to run and skip and play.

“Oh dear, how young I am!” Guillaume would exclaim.

“I shall be two next year,” Gilberte declared.

They could be serious also. She asked him about his writing, wanted to read what he had printed. He refused, on the pretext that he was not satisfied. Nevertheless, he showed her a letter from the editor of an important review, a letter teeming with compliments.

He lent her his favorite books and she devoured them.

Mme. de la Vaudraye was in ecstasies. She was now certain that her dream would be realized. She was too clever to betray her delight and hid it under demonstrations of gratitude:

“How sweet of you, my dear Gilberte, to tame that wild savage! You will make quite a courtier of him.”

And she added, with a sigh:

“Oh, if you could only turn him into a more attentive son and make him more grateful to his mother for all the sacrifices she has made for him!”

The discord between Mme. de la Vaudraye and Guillaume was Gilberte’s greatest grief. Her love of harmony prompted her to make continual endeavours at reconciliation which were bound to fail as much because of the mother’s arid artificiality as of the son’s stubbornness and reserve.

She had to give up the attempt.

But she suffered another pain, arising from her extreme sensitiveness: at the close of day, she could no longer go to the ruined summer-house without a certain sense of discomfort. Her unknown friend was faithful to the daily tryst which they had made with their dreams; and, though Gilberte herself never failed to keep it, she felt as though she had done him some wrong. With her eyes fixed on the distant mountains melting into the deep blue of the heavens, she let herself drift into vague reveries, far, very far away from the homely valley where her first friend patiently waited for her thoughts to return to him. It was at such times, when the darkness overtook her amidst this delightful torpor, that she seemed to be coming back from a long journey. She was almost angry with herself. But why? She could not have said.

One day, at five o’clock, as she was going down to her garden, she received a note from Mme. de la Vaudraye.

“MY DEAR GILBERTE,

“Guillaume and I are going for a stroll in the Forest of Andaine. It is such a fine evening: do come with us.”

Should she go? To do so meant a break in sweet custom that had lent such charm to the most oppressive hours of her life, meant throwing over the constant friendship of the bad days.

She wavered and, wavering, went up to her room, put on her things, went out and knocked at the La Vaudrayes’ door.

Whatever regrets may have lingered in her conscientious mind were very soon dispelled by the pleasure which the walk gave her from the start. Spring was trying her hand, at the tips of the branches, with tiny pale-green leaves and, along the roadsides and ditches, with those charming early flowers which are so dear to us: anemones, periwinkles, primroses, wild hyacinths, lilies of the valley.... Arched lanes sped into the depths of the woods. Sweet scents, songs and colours played and mingled in all the gladness of new-born nature.

They walked without speaking. Sometimes, Guillaume and Gilberte would point out to each other, with a glance, a corner of the landscape, or the outline of a tree, or the glint of a ray of sunshine, both wishing the other to share their delight and admiration.

They sat down on the edge of a pool whose waters slumbered amidst a circle of old pines that joined their arms around them as though to dance a moveless measure. It was one of those abodes of silence that open only in the hearts of old forests. Those who are brought there by chance and who grasp the fitness of things are themselves silent.

Mme. de la Vaudraye exclaimed:

“On the first fine Sunday, we must make up a party and come here. It is a lovely spot for a picnic. What do you say?”

They did not reply. She continued:

“Every one will bring his own provisions. Of course, Mme. Charmeron will make her famous spiced beef and Mlle. du Bocage her prune-tart. And, at dessert, everybody must come out with a set of verses!”

Guillaume hurled a pebble violently into the mirror of the water.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Mme. de la Vaudraye.

He sprang up and confronted her, angrily, impatiently, with tense wrists. But, as he was about to speak, he met Gilberte’s eyes, sad and full of entreaty. He seemed quite dazed, his lips trembled and suddenly he took Mme. de la Vaudraye in his arms and began to kiss her with all his might, with all his fervent soul. And he blurted out:

“It’s quite right ... you’re my mother ... you’re my mother ... you’re entitled to say what you please.... What you say is right.... It’s my business to understand.... Oh, mother, if you only knew ...!”

VII

GILBERTE’S TWO FRIENDS

GILBERTE did not go to the summer-house again. A feeling of delicacy kept her away. Nevertheless, each day, at the accustomed hour, something like a light cloud passed over her mind; and she was not far from accusing herself of ingratitude.

What was but a vague remorse towards a friend whom she had never known took a more definite shape, in another sense, with regard to him whom she now saw almost daily. She would so much have liked to offer him a brand-new friendship and to feel the excitement of it for the first time! True, there was no struggle between two sentiments, since one was so far-off and vague, the other so vivid and distinct. And yet....

There are childish conflicts which would not even ripple the most scrupulous soul, but which form the mighty storms of peaceful and innocent consciences such as Gilberte’s.

But all this took place deep down within herself, unconsciously, so to speak, and could not diminish her magical delight in living. For magic it was, something that approached a miracle, when she compared the gloom of the past with the dazzling life of the present. Whence did she derive the joy with which she thrilled at her awakening; the enthusiasm that swept her at the sight of a flower, of a landscape, of any spectacle a hundred times witnessed and never fully seen; that exaltation of thought, those sudden blushes, that inexplicable torpor of her whole being and, at the same time, that unchangeable serenity which doubled the uncertainty of her life with strength, faith, patience and certainty?

There was no allusion to the incident in the Forest of Andaine. But, from that time onward, Mme. de la Vaudraye looked upon her son in a different fashion; and, in the same way, in her conduct towards Gilberte, there was something that had hitherto been lacking: a touch of respect.

Guillaume said to Gilberte:

“You are a regular fairy, no, more than a fairy, for you exercise your power without knowing or trying. To do good, to disarm hatred, to heal wounds, to make others want to be indulgent and kind, you have no need even to wish. You have only to be as you are; and everything around you grows nobler and better.”

She listened and smiled. From him she accepted praise without blushing. He could have praised her beauty and enumerated all her charms without causing her to lower her eyes. He could not wound her maidenly modesty.

One morning, following upon a day when Gilberte had not been to Mme. de la Vaudraye’s, Adèle came back from the town all out of breath:

“Oh, ma’am, here’s a nice to do! Yesterday, at Mme. de la Vaudraye’s evening, young M. Simare....”

“I thought he was away,” said Gilberte, interrupting her.

“He is back; and, last evening, he and M. Guillaume, during the duet from Mireille, had some words in a corner ... they were heard quarrelling.... It seems that the elder M. Simare told a story that wasn’t quite proper and M. Guillaume went for the son about it.”

“Oh, it’s all my fault!” said Gilberte to herself, feeling certain that Guillaume had taken the first opportunity to bring about a rupture.

And she asked:

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Mme. Duval saw two officers ringing at the Simares’ house just now and she says that M. Guillaume has ordered the landau from the hotel for presently ... but that has nothing to do with it.”

Though she did not foresee the possible consequences of an altercation between the two young men, Gilberte was convinced that no interference on her part would settle things, as it had done with M. le Hourteulx and M. Beaufrelant. Guillaume would not consent to have M. Simare admitted to the house again. The father would side with his son. Mme. de la Vaudraye would be furious at losing two of her regular visitors. In short, it meant a whole series of bothers and quarrels, of which Gilberte would have been the real cause.

She was very low-spirited at lunch. A presentiment of danger depressed her, but she could not have said of what sort it was nor whom it threatened.

Her suffering must have been genuine to induce her to rise suddenly, go out and turn her steps towards the La Vaudrayes’ house. But what she was doing must also have seemed to her very useless and very serious to make her stop suddenly, with frightened hesitation. How was she to act? Whom was she to influence? What events was she to avert?

The church was near and she went in. But she was unable to pray; and her anxiety became all the more painful inasmuch as she did not know its reason. Then, rather than return to the Logis, where inactivity would have been intolerable, she went along the high-road to the bottom of the valley, followed the Varenne for a short distance and then climbed up towards the Haute-Chapelle.

At three o’clock, feeling a little tired, she made for the shade on the skirt of a little wood and sat down. She had hardly left the road when the hotel landau passed and turned down the forest-lane. Was Guillaume in it?

A sound of harness-bells, the crack of a whip told her that another carriage was on its way. A break came dashing along, carrying Simare and a couple of officers, and disappeared down the same lane.

For a second, Gilberte stood breathless at a horrible thought. She would not, no, she would not have it! Then, suddenly, she began to run at full speed. A cross-roads brought her to a stop forthwith. Which of the three roads should she take?

She chose the one on the right, but, after running fifty yards, went back to the middle one and then to the one on the left. After that, she roamed at random, beating the copses, hunting on the grass for the marks of carriage-wheels, flinging herself among the ferns, listening and looking with all her nerves on edge....

A shot ... and a second, at almost the same moment ... close by....

She gave a scream and fell to the ground.

A few minutes passed. As though in a dream, she saw, through the branches, the two carriages driving by. Then voices sounded:

“I assure you, doctor, I am not mistaken. It was a woman screaming.”

She had not the strength to raise her eyelids or speak; but she felt that two men were coming towards her. One of them bent over her and took her hand:

“It’s nothing. She has only fainted.”

“In that case, doctor, don’t wait,” said the other voice. “I will see her home.”

The mist in which she was struggling lifted slowly. She perceived the smell of the earth on which she lay. She made an effort to throw off the feeling of sleep that numbed her and she opened her eyes. Guillaume was standing before her.

“You, you?” she whispered. “Oh, how glad I am! And M. Simare?”

“He’s not hurt either.”

“That’s a good thing.”

There was a pause; and then she asked:

“Why did you do it? It was not right.”

“I lost my head, when he spoke to me last night, and I yielded to an irresistible impulse of hatred. I did not know what I was doing.”

“But your mother?”

“I have managed to hide the truth from her so far. One of my seconds said that he would tell her.”

“Go to her, run as fast as you can.... She will be so anxious until she sees you.... Go at once....”

“No.”

He was so firm that she despaired of persuading him. And yet she wanted him to go. Then she looked at him and smiled:

“To please me,” she said.

“Very well,” he said, “but you must come too.”

She at once summoned her pluck and rose to her feet; and, when she expressed her wish to get back without delay he led her through the short cuts where there was hardly room to walk side by side. But their pace slackened at once; and they stopped three times to rest on the road. Gilberte no longer displayed any hurry. What did they say? Nothing but insignificant words, which they did not remember afterwards. Nevertheless, when uttering them, they felt that they had never been interested in weightier matters. What importance could suddenly have attached, in the course of a walk, to the sight of two initials interlaced on the bark of a tree, or to the flight of a bird, or to a stone rolling down a slope! Whereas, to them, these were so many astounding incidents that deserved a stop and the interchange of a few ecstatic words.

A contest between some insect and a squad of five ants that were trying to drag it away kept them for quite a long time. Who would be the victor? Gilberte took pity on the insect and saved it when it was on the point of falling in the fray. Guillaume exclaimed, in accents of profound conviction:

“You are the most generous-hearted creature I have ever met.”

Guillaume compared the moss at the foot of an oak to velvet; and Gilberte became aware that all the poetry in the world was summed up in her companion.

Having exhausted their original reflexions, their brilliant remarks and their mutual admiration, they were silent until they emerged from the wood. A lane of apple-trees led them past furze and rocks. At the foot of the slope ran the Varenne. After they had taken a turn, Gilberte cried:

“Look, that might be my garden, on the other side.... Why, so it is!... There’s the Logis.... Where are we?”

She walked on. They came to a cluster of small fir-trees. When they had passed them, they were just opposite the ruined summer-house, with only the width of the valley in between.

Gilberte gave a start. That spur of the hill, that circle of red rocks surrounding it, that cluster of firs: was this not the spot where the unknown stranger, for months ...?

A flood of contradictory feelings welled up within her: feelings of gratitude towards the invisible friend, feelings of confusion towards the actual friend, memories of the dear past and visions of the present. How she wished that she had not come to this place with Guillaume! She felt inclined to exclaim:

“Go away! Go away!”

But, on turning her head, she was stupefied at the sight of his pallor and the change in his face:

“What’s the matter? Why don’t you say something? Speak to me!”

She broke off. A sudden thought struck her, an improbable, but madly delightful idea. She fixed her eyes on his, looked down into his very soul; and the truth appeared to her so clearly that, leaning against the side of the rock, she gasped:

“It was you all the time!... It was you!...”

Not for a moment did the shadow of a fear that she was mistaken, cross her. Holding her head between her hands and closing her eyes, she took refuge in her happiness as in an inaccessible dwelling from which not even he could have driven her.

He was speaking now, kneeling before her; and it seemed to Gilberte as though two voices were joined in that one voice of entreaty, as though the unknown friend were joining his prayer to Guillaume’s, blending his image with Guillaume’s, mingling with him and beseeching her with the same hands, adoring her with the same heart:

“Gilberte, it was the day on which you arrived at Domfront, You were in the public gardens, near the ruins, and I saw you raise your mourning-veil. Since that day, my life has been wrapped up in yours. When you went over the Logis with my mother, I was there, hiding behind a curtain. You stopped close by me, I was able to take you in my eyes, to lock you in my breast like a treasure; I heard your voice, I breathed your fragrance and I lived on that memory for weeks, seeking you, calling you, hovering round the Logis, hoping for a chance meeting. Oh, the delight of it when I saw you from here, one afternoon, and when you came back next day and every day, every day! I was not sure, but it appeared to me that you saw me ... and then ... that it was just a little because of me that you came back.”

“I saw you, yes, I saw you,” said Gilberte, without removing her clasped hands from her face.

He asked:

“Are you crying?”

“I am so happy!”

“Happy?”

“Yes, happy because it was you.”

“Gilberte,” he begged, “I would give worlds to see your tears.”

She showed her dear face all wet with tears, all smiling with tears. He whispered:

“I love you.”

She seemed surprised and repeated, gravely:

“You love me ... you love me....”

He watched her anxiously. But the bright features lit up anew and she said to Guillaume, gaily and blithely, as though she had made the most wonderful and unexpected of discoveries:

“But, you know, Guillaume, I love you too.”

She had the look of a delighted child. She could have clapped her hands, so great was the enchantment of that magnificent vision of love, so sweet was it to know that she loved and was loved.

She leant over to him prettily:

“Then you are the one I was loving all the time and it is you that I love, Guillaume?”

“Gilberte ... please....”

“What do you want? Tell me what you want, Guillaume.”

“Your eyes, Gilberte, to kiss your innocent eyes, your eyes which are like the eyes of a little girl.”

Closing the lids, she offered her eyes, as though it were a quite natural thing. He took her in his arms and drew her to him. But a shiver passed through her at once. She made an instinctive movement of resistance and moaned:

“No ... no ... oh, please don’t!...”

She was not laughing now. A blush covered her cheeks and forehead. She no longer dared look at him; and Guillaume’s eyes almost hurt her. This time, it was the real, perturbing, mysterious revelation of love. Shaken with emotion, she faltered:

“Go away ... please go away....”

He kissed the hem of her skirt, picked some leaves, some blades of grass that Gilberte’s feet had trodden and went away.

VIII

THE APPOITMENT

“GILBERTE:

“I must not see you again. When you read these lines, I shall have left Domfront. You are rich and I am poor: you need look for no other explanation of my departure and of my conduct in the past. I loved you from the first; and from the first I swore that I would shun you and for ever conceal the feeling with which you inspire me.

“Do you now understand why I behaved so coldly to you from the beginning, though my heart throbbed at the mere sound of your voice; why I was so hard to my mother, whose plans were obvious to all and drove me to exasperation: I was afraid lest you should think that I was privy to them; why I kept in the background, hiding among those rocks, looking at you from a distance as at a goal which I knew was, and wished it to be, inaccessible?

“But you came to me, Gilberte: that is all my excuse. You came to me out of kindness to my mother, perhaps also prompted by that instinct which makes us conscious of love where it lies deepest. What could I do against your fascination? I did not even struggle. I closed my eyes to all that was not you, you and your beauty and your smile and your charming grace and the colour of your hair and the freshness of your cheeks and the rhythm of your footsteps; and, with not a further thought of my oath or the inevitable consequences of my weakness, I accepted the infinite joy that came to me. Oh, Gilberte, those few weeks!... But there was something which I had never imagined in my boldest dreams: you loved me, you also loved me.

“You love me, which means that happiness is within my reach to-morrow, the next day, every day. It is there, I have but to take it; a word from me and you are my wife. For I know you, my beloved: the gift of your heart is the gift of your entire life.

“And so I must go, if I would not be overcome by temptation....

“Oh, Gilberte, you do not know what I am feeling and suffering, you who do not know what you are, you who are all that is most human and most divine, most noble and most simple, a miracle of harmony, attractiveness and light. But you know nothing of yourself and will never know anything. One could tell you and your mirror could teach you all the perfections of your face and form; and yet you would not know them. Were you a child of ten, wearing the white frock of your first communion, I should proclaim my admiration with the same frankness and with no greater fear of hurting your modesty. The whole world might be at your feet, chanting your praises; and you would be none the less humble. That is the marvel of your ingenuous nature. All is merged in your purity, as in a great, limpid sea in which every impurity would vanish. It is impossible to think of you without evoking images of whiteness, of transparency, of crystal water. By what mystery has it come that the trials of life, the realities of marriage have not soiled the freshness of your innocent eyes?

“And so I shall never see your eyes again: your eyes of the dawn, your eyes fresh as the dew, your kind, ignorant, gentle eyes, so fond, so gay, so sad....”

She lowered her head, overcome with emotion. Mme. de la Vaudraye, who had brought her this letter from her son and who waited for her to finish reading it, said, rather aggressively:

“I should be glad of a word of explanation, Gilberte. Yesterday, my son fights a duel without any adequate cause. To-day, he leaves me, without giving me any reason. Have these two incidents anything to do with you? You must admit their seriousness to a mother.”

Gilberte handed her the letter. Mme. de la Vaudraye read it and shrugged her shoulders:

“Are you so very rich?”

The girl gave her another letter, received that morning, in which the Dieppe solicitor furnished her with her quarterly statement. Mme. de la Vaudraye started:

“Impossible! Oh, my child, you must never let Guillaume know!”

“How can I? He has gone away!”

“And you sit there and say that so quietly! Doesn’t his going distress you? Don’t you love him?”

“Yes, I love him.”

“Then write to him.”

“Write to him?”

“Yes, tell him to come back ... tell him that his position makes no difference to you....”

She spoke with a certain embarrassment: and this made Gilberte feel awkward. However, she said:

“I can’t write. Guillaume alone can solve the question that lies between him and his conscience.”

Mme. de la Vaudraye gave an impatient gesture and cried:

“You can’t write! What a ridiculous scruple! Is it any worse to write to a young man than to go walking about the country with him, as I hear you did yesterday? What! My son fights a duel because of you, he leaves me because of you; and, when I, his mother, ask you ...! Well, what’s the matter? What are you looking at me like that for?”

A chair suddenly pushed aside, an overturned flower-vase bore evidence to Mme. de la Vaudraye’s burst of irritation. She flew out again:

“Oh, yes, it’s all very well, but one can’t stand that eternal gentleness of yours! Here am I, telling you how wrong you are, and you listen in such a queer way that I end by putting myself in the wrong. One always feels with you as though one were in front of an indulgent judge, who graciously forgives one’s faults. And yet it’s you who are at fault!”

“Why, of course!” said Gilberte, all confusion.

“Then why do I look like a prisoner being judged?”

“Oh, but you don’t!”

“Yes, I do. It’s all very well for you to bend your head and all very well for me to rave and yell: any one would think that I was to blame and that you were making allowances. You must admit, it is enough to make one lose all patience.”

Presumably, Mme. de la Vaudraye was afraid of growing still more impatient, for she went away without another word.

Gilberte called on her, next day, and kissed her affectionately. There was not a word said about their difference of the day before.

They saw each other every day. According to the weather, they walked in the town or walked about the neighbourhood, leaning on each other’s arm and heedless of any but themselves. But they invariably returned at the same hour.

“Ah, it’s five o’clock: here are the ladies coming back!” people said.

This regularity was due to Gilberte. As soon as she was free, she went to the ruined summer-house and sat there until dinnertime.

“But why this hurry?” asked Mme. de la Vaudraye. “You never give me a minute over.”

“And what about my daily appointment?” said Gilberte, laughing.

“Your appointment?”

“Why, yes, with your son: what would he think of me if I were not punctual?”

In the course of a longer excursion than usual, Mme. de la Vaudraye, who was fond of turning the conversation on her past greatness, pointed out the limits of the property once possessed by her ancestors. They extended along both banks of the Varenne, as far as the spot where it joined the Andainette.

“To say nothing of what we owned on the forest side: the Revolution robbed us of that. Why, on the death of my father, the whole of the valley still belonged to us! My marriage-portion included everything down to the Bas-Moulin. And you should have seen the Logis in those days! Such furniture! Such works of art!”

Gilberte, to humour her, asked:

“And how did you lose it?”

“Oh, it’s a long story, a heap of mysterious business-schemes in which my poor husband, a decent man, if ever there was one, allowed himself to be robbed by a company-promoter called Despriol. You remember that empty house, near Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau, which took your fancy yesterday, I don’t quite know why? Well, that’s where Despriol and his wife lived, up to fifteen years ago. Henriette Despriol was a charming woman; she and I were great friends; and she used to come to the Logis when she liked ... so did her husband, for M. de la Vaudraye was never happy out of his sight; and I did not dream of suspecting him, for he struck me as a good-natured, honest man and M. de la Vaudraye was careful to hide from me the dangerous speculations into which his evil genius was dragging him. Everything was discovered in an hour. Despriol took to flight, after losing, or rather stealing, all that remained to us. We were ruined.”

She paused and then continued:

“There’s worse than that. On the same evening, my dear friend Henriette came and flung herself on her knees before me and implored me to give her money to join her husband, who was in concealment in the neighbourhood, and to enable them to leave the country and retrieve their fortunes. It was a piece of brazen impudence; and I showed her the door. Unfortunately, I left her alone, for a moment, in my bedroom. An hour after, I saw that a box containing all my jewels had disappeared. We rushed to her house: she was gone.”

“Did you prosecute them?”

“We notified the police, but they were never found. Five years ago, I received a letter from Henriette in which she said, ‘The ten thousand francs which my husband sent you this morning represent the value of the jewels. It is the first money which we have been able to put by. I am longing for the day when we shall be in a position to settle with you altogether and when I shall have the right to beg your forgiveness for all the harm that we have done you. Until that day comes there will be no rest for your repentant friend.”

“And since then ...?”

“Since then, I have received another letter, a few months ago, in which she told me that her husband was dead and that she was on her way to me with all the money she owed me.”

“Well?”

“Nothing but lies! Nobody came. Do people like that come and pay back the money they have stolen! No, they were a couple of thieves. You ask anybody at Domfront about M. and Mme. Despriol: a nice reputation they left behind them! If either of them thought of coming back here, they’d be stoned in the streets! Henriette indeed! Why, I should spit in her face, that I would, the sneak, the hypocrite!...”

She uttered those words with an accent of implacable hatred charged with all the rancour of those fifteen years of poverty and privation. Gilberte shuddered. The evil expression on that face filled her with a sort of repugnance. Nevertheless, she took Mme. de la Vaudraye’s hand and, raising it to her lips, murmured:

“You poor dear!”

And she did this not designedly, because it was Guillaume’s mother whom she was conciliating, but from an undefined and all-powerful instinct that compelled her to be kind to this humiliated and disappointed woman.

It was the same instinct which had guided her hitherto and which made her still more attentive and affectionate in the days that followed, notwithstanding a certain sense of constraint which she felt in Mme. de la Vaudraye’s presence. She knew no greater pleasure than to smooth the wrinkles from those sullen features at the moment when they were most firmly set; and to do this she employed all sorts of childish rogueries:

“Come, try hard and laugh.... There, you have laughed!”

Mme. de la Vaudraye was touched by all this charm of manner. It made her neglect the artificial plan of conduct which she had arranged to captivate the girl: she forgot to conceal her faults, she even became natural and spontaneous.

One day, after something that Gilberte had said, with a sudden movement she drew the girl to her:

“Oh, my darling, what a treasure of a wife you would make!”

Gilberte smiled:

“Indeed! How do I know that you would have me for a daughter!... However, we shall soon see ... perhaps to-morrow....”

“To-morrow?”

“Why, of course! Isn’t this the day when Guillaume is coming to the trysting-place where I wait for him every day?”

“Guillaume? I had a letter from him this morning from Paris. Besides, I know him; when he has made up his mind....”

Gilberte looked at her watch:

“Five o’clock. Suppose he were there now!... Ah, I have a feeling that he is there to-day, that I shall see him!... Good-bye till to-morrow.”

She hastened away swiftly, leaving her companion speechless. Hope filled her breast, a hope each time disappointed, but never discouraged.

“Mme. Armand is coming back alone this afternoon,” said the people at Domfront. “What a hurry she’s in!”

She crossed the threshold of the Logis without stopping and went straight to the summer-house. Her eyes longed to pierce the screen of foliage that hid the hill from sight. She had not a doubt that he was there; and, at the same time, she felt the madness of her certainty.

She arrived. Her glance at once swept the rocks. He was there.

She was on the point of throwing him handfuls of kisses, or else of kneeling down and stretching out her arms to him across space, but she saw him running down the slope and she herself started running towards him, as fast as she could.

She arrived all out of breath at the bottom of the garden, broke down the little wooden gate, which was slow in opening, and sprang into the road at the moment when Guillaume crossed the bridge:

“Gilberte!”

“Guillaume!”

They assured themselves with a glance that nothing was changed in either of them and then silently followed the road that skirts the Varenne. They dared not speak, overcome with the importance of the words which they were about to pronounce. Besides, excitement gripped them by the throat.

Thus they arrived at Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau, the old Norman chapel which is so prettily situated on the river-bank.

Leaning on the balustrade above the water flowing through the arches of the bridge, they revelled in the delight of dreaming side by side. Then Guillaume said:

“It was more than I could bear. I wanted to see you, if only for a few minutes ... and to gather fresh courage....”

She asked, in a voice that did not sound like her own:

“Then ... you are going back?...”

“I intended to ... but I can’t now.... I can’t now....”

He continued, almost in a whisper:

“It’s not weakness. But I am seeing you; and to see you is to see things and ideas as they are. You flood them with the light which is in you and which springs from you. Yes, I tried to escape the temptation and I had a wild desire to work in solitude, so as to achieve the wealth and fame that would have permitted me to marry you. And now ... and now I see that it is all madness. Why suffer uselessly? Let us struggle together, Gilberte. I can do nothing without you ... I am too much in love with you.”

“And your scruples?” she asked, maliciously.

“What do wealth and poverty matter? They are words to which I was able to attach a certain value when away from you in writing to you. But, when I am near you, it seems to me that they mean nothing. A man has no right to order his life by such empty phrases.... Oh, Gilberte, you put everything in its right proportion, you are truth itself, your love gives certainty and peace! Such as I am, I am worthy of you, because you love me....”

She gave him her hand. He asked:

“You are not angry with me?”

“For going away, Guillaume? No, I was so sure that you would come back!”

IX

AFFIANCED

ON the next afternoon, Adèle burst into the room where Gilberte was sitting after lunch:

“M’am, there’s Mme. de la Vaudraye and her son turning into the square. Am I to let them in?”

“Yes, certainly, I am expecting them.”

“Then it’s true what Mme. Duval says, that you’re going to marry M. Guillaume, ma’am?”

“Well, suppose I am?”

“Oh, as far as M. Guillaume’s concerned, I’ve nothing to say! But Mme. de la Vaudraye as your mother-in-law! If you want to know, ma’am, I’d rather....”

The front-bell rang; and she went to the door looking very cross.

Gilberte shot a glance at the glass over the mantel-piece, pushed a curl into place and nervously made a change in the flowers in the vases, bunches of roses which she had gathered herself. Adèle showed in the mother and son.

Mme. de la Vaudraye was radiant. A moment before, in the main street, the mere sight of her silk dress, her ceremonious walk and her triumphant expression must have told the inhabitants of Domfront the exact nature of her errand.

She entered with the ease of one who is quite at home. Her way of sitting down showed that she was definitely and blissfully taking possession. There was none of the stiffness, none of the preliminary commonplaces that usually mark this sort of interview. Mme. de la Vaudraye was much too eager to come to the point:

“My dear Gilberte, I wish to ask your hand for my son Guillaume.”

All their love, all the unspeakable happiness of their souls, all their gratitude, all their faith in the future was contained in the glance exchanged by Guillaume and Gilberte. Nothing remained of the irritation which his mother’s air of victory caused him, nothing remained of the anxiety which the other felt at this solemn hour.

Mme. de la Vaudraye did not even wait to hear the answer.

“First of all, my dear child, let me speak to you as a friend and as a woman of experience, who knows only too well, by what she herself has been through, that happiness in married life is based upon material prosperity. You know, don’t you, how Guillaume and I are placed as regards money? On the death of my poor husband....”

Guillaume rose and walked to the open window, as though bored beforehand by what was coming. Gilberte felt very much inclined to join him and to leave Mme. de la Vaudraye to fight out with herself the question of the material prosperity on which married bliss is based. But the older woman’s imperious eye nailed her to her chair; and, nodding her head at intervals, by way of assent, she had to listen to a long speech in which strange phrases like separate and common property, joint estate and settlements kept on recurring.

“That will do nicely,” she said, with an air of deliberation, though she did not understand a single word of what was said.

“Are we agreed?”

“Quite, madame.”

“Well, children, kiss each other and bless you!”

Guillaume stepped forward and his outstretched arms closed round Gilberte. He kissed her forehead, kissed her eyes. She released herself, blushing, and said:

“It is my first kiss, Guillaume.”

He felt a momentary bitterness:

“Your first ... from me.”

She smiled:

“A girl must not receive a kiss from any but the man she is engaged to ... and are you not the first, the only one?”

“What do you mean, Gilberte?”

“I mean, Guillaume,” she said, in accents throbbing with her heart’s gladness, “I mean that I am not a widow, that I have never been married, that I called myself a married woman in the hope of escaping attention and that no such person as Mme. Armand exists.”

Guillaume was trembling with emotion. He understood, yet refused to admit the truth, so great would have been the anguish of a mistake:

“No, no, I dare not believe it ... you, a girl, unmarried!”

“What is there so extraordinary in that?”

“Oh, Gilberte!”

He had seized her hands and stood gazing at her in ecstasy.

She whispered:

“I was sure that you would be delighted.”

“It is something more than delight. You seem to me even more beautiful and even more innocent and sacred. I do not love you any better, but I love you differently.”

And he continued:

“Is it really possible? Is there no one in your past? Is there not even that shadow on my happiness?”

“My whole past is you, Guillaume.”

Mme. de la Vaudraye came up to them. They had forgotten all about her; and her appearance gave them an impression that was all the more painful inasmuch as the sudden gravity of her features was in direct contrast with their own rapture. She said to Gilberte:

“If Mme. Armand does not exist, then whom is my son marrying?”

“Well, Gilberte....”

“Gilberte whom?”

“Gilberte Me,” replied the girl, trying to speak playfully, but half-uneasy at heart.

“Come, child, that’s not enough. You must have a surname?...”

“I suppose so....”

“What was your father’s name? Your mother’s?”

“I don’t know.”

Mme. de la Vaudraye drew herself up to the full length of her angular figure. It was as though she were learning some terrible event, a catastrophe. Gilberte caught sight of Guillaume’s pallor and suddenly understood what she had never even half-realized, the danger of her irregular position where a woman like Mme. de la Vaudraye was concerned. She shook with terror.

Guillaume interposed gently:

“Don’t upset yourself, Gilberte. I need not say how little importance I attach to all this; but mother does not look at things from my point of view. Let us hear the facts.”

Gilberte, without entering into details, told of the death of her mother, the loss of the family-papers and the whole chapter of accidents which had prevented her from penetrating the mystery that surrounded her. As she went on, her voice lost its assurance. All this story, which, until then, she had simply regarded as a source of petty worries, now, under Mme. de la Vaudraye’s stern eye, appeared to her the abominable story of a worthless creature. To be without a name! She felt as much ashamed of herself as though they had made the unexpected discovery that she had an ear missing, or a piece of one cheek. And yet, in the silence that followed on her recital she sought in vain for the crime which she had committed, for the crime of which she was held guilty.

“Well, mother,” said Guillaume, “there’s nothing serious in that.”

“Nothing serious!” sneered Mme. de la Vaudraye.

All her little middle-class, provincial feelings were outraged by this unforeseen revelation. The pride of the La Vaudrayes cried aloud within her. What would people say at Domfront if a La Vaudraye married a girl without a name, a foundling, an adventuress, in fact! She pictured the tittletattle, the sidelong allusions, the condolences with which she would be overwhelmed.

“My poor friend, how very unpleasant for you!... Of course, I knew there was something suspicious about her, for, after all....”

And they would say, among themselves:

“No name? Nonsense! When people haven’t a name, it’s because it’s to their interest not to have one, because they are hiding their real name.”

She did not take the trouble to put it politely. Bluntly, she declared:

“The marriage is out of the question. It will not take place.”

Guillaume protested indignantly:

“Out of the question! And why, pray?”

“Can’t you see that for yourself? I’m surprised at your asking!”

“I insist on knowing, as Gilberte’s affianced husband.”

“Gilberte’s husband! People don’t marry....”

“Silence, mother!”

He was standing before her, with his features convulsed. Another word and he would have closed her lips by mean force. She was afraid of him. He went on, dropping his voice:

“You are right, we had better not continue this explanation in her presence. Any words other than words of veneration I look upon as an insult to the girl I love.”

He pushed her towards the door sternly. But Gilberte barred their road:

“No, Guillaume, not like that.... If we must part, let it not be with angry words.... I love both of you too well, yes, both of you, madame,” she declared, in the voice that no one could resist.

Her gentleness was stronger than Guillaume’s violence. He made no further movement. Mme. de la Vaudraye allowed herself to be led back into the room. Gilberte made her sit down and knelt beside her:

“Act as your conscience tells you, but, please, without any bitterness against me.... Whatever you decide to do, do not let me lose your affection.”

There may have been a sort of revenge on Gilberte in Mme. de la Vaudraye’s unbending attitude. She rejoiced to see this child, who had always dominated her by her goodness and candour, on her knees before her, while she, the judge, looked down from her moral pedestal and put her to confusion from the heights of her respectability.

She did not reply. Gilberte continued:

“You remember our walk, a little while ago, when you showed me the former boundaries of your property.... Well, I bought it all up ... in order to give it back to you. I hoped to bring you back here, to this house which belongs to you. Everything is yours, you would have managed and disposed of everything, you would have been the absolute mistress, answerable to no one, you would have resumed your proper place at Domfront, the Logis would have become what it used to be....”

A gleam flashed through Mme. de la Vaudraye’s eyes, but she restrained herself. The same inflexible will contracted her face into a hard and stiff mask. Coldly, she said:

“I am exceedingly sorry that all these fine plans cannot be realized, but it is not my fault.... Make enquiries.... Who knows ...? Perhaps you will succeed in finding out the indispensable truth.”

Gilberte, in her despair, was nearly flinging her arms round her neck and saying:

“Stay here, please.... Be to me the mother whom I have lost.... I will love you like a daughter....”

But Guillaume prevented her:

“Why humiliate yourself, Gilberte?... If my mother will not consent....”

“Well?”

“Well, are we not free?”

“No, Guillaume,” she answered, firmly, “I will not marry you except with your mother’s entire approval.”

He turned pale and murmured:

“But ... we shall see each other....”

“We shall not see each other. We can only see each other by stealth; and that is unworthy of us.”

“Suppose I meet you....”

“I shall not leave the Logis.”

“But....”

“We will wait, Guillaume. Am I not your promised bride?”

He bowed. His mother went out. He followed her.

And Gilberte felt as though she had never been so lonely in her life.

X

THE DESERTED HOUSE

NEXT day, Gilberte received the following letter from Maître Dufornéril, her solicitor at Dieppe:

“MADEMOISELLE,

“I have just received your telegram asking me where we stand in the matter of our enquiries. I have already given you the information which I obtained regarding your life and that of your parents at Liverpool, although this, unfortunately, told us nothing new. M. Kellner, which was the name under which your father made his fortune at Liverpool, left none but pleasant memories behind him in the commercial world of that city. On the other hand, no one knew anything of his private life or of his antecedents. It was not even known that he was married; and this fully bears out what you told me of the retired existence which your mother and yourself used to lead.

“I was therefore obliged to pursue our investigations to Berlin, which takes us six years further back. Your father at that time called himself M. Dumas. And here we have evidence that a fire broke out on the 15th of October 18—in the warehouse of M. Dumas, a bonder of Anjou wines, in the Frischwasserstrasse. Among the rooms completely destroyed was that which M. Dumas, who was at the same time a general agent, used as an office in which to see his clients, most of whom were countrymen of his own. M. Dumas made an affidavit from which it appears that all his papers were burnt.

“On this side, consequently, we arrive at a very unfortunate certainty: your family-papers are no longer in existence; that is clear. We have therefore to trace your parents back to the time of their departure from France. Once we have done this and discovered the town in which they used to live, it will be easy, by advertising, to find out who you really are.

“Your father had in his employment, in Berlin, a Frenchman of the name of Renaudeau, whom he appears to have trusted absolutely and to have treated, according to the neighbours, as a friend of long standing. When he left Berlin, he made over his business to Renaudeau. Next year, Renaudeau went bankrupt. But he is believed to be at Hamburg. I have written to the French consul there; and I will let you know as soon as I hear from him.”

Day after day went by, days like those which followed on her arrival at Domfront. Gilberte once more became the recluse to whom none had access save the poor and destitute of the countryside; and, though they still spoke of her as la Bonne Demoiselle of the Logis and blessed her for her charity, it might well be that they no longer took away with them that impression of comfort which they welcomed no less than the alms. How could she have consoled them, she who herself was yearning for consolation?

However, she did not give up all hope. Gilberte had one of those rather passive natures which, in happy hours, overflow with generous gladness, but which, at times of trial, fall back upon themselves and live in that kind of quiet contemplation which is as it were a patient expectation. Mastering her sorrow and checking any signs of rebellion or distress, she appeared less sensitive than others to the most cruel blows with which fate overwhelmed her and, through every obstacle and every vicissitude, she pursued her inward dream, sad or joyous, bright or gloomy, but always built up of love and kindness.

The most appalling time was the close of day. Night fell late at that time of the year; and it would have been sweet indeed to go down to the summer-house after dinner. She had not a doubt but that Guillaume was regular in his attendance at their former trysting-place. He must be stretching out his arms to her now, calling her, entreating her, reproaching her: oh, the torture of not being able to go to him!

She never ceased thinking of him. The memories of their common past formed the only charm of the present; and, by one of love’s illusions, she made her own memories begin on the very day on which Guillaume’s began. And so she remembered the minute when he had caught her raising her mourning-veil in the garden by the ruins. She remembered the moment when, hiding behind a curtain, he had come near to her for the first time. Had she not always loved him? Why had she, from the first and despite Guillaume’s deliberate rebuffs, sought to tame him, as Mme. de la Vaudraye called it, and to win his liking? Why also her impulse of friendship towards the mysterious unknown?

Gilberte took little or no heed of what the town said of all these happenings, having asked Adèle not to tell her: an order which the unfortunate servant found great difficulty in obeying! Domfront was bubbling and seething with comments! For, after all, there was this undeniable fact: in the sight of the whole world, as everybody could bear witness, a formal proposal had been made for Gilberte’s hand in marriage; and it resulted in a breach between the La Vaudrayes and Mme. Armand. A complete breach! For they no longer even saw one another. And the inexplicable thing was that, since that famous afternoon, Mme. Armand had not once left the Logis.

What was underneath it all? From which side did the breach come? A score of contradictory versions went the round of the town, but none of them bore the marks of indisputable authenticity upon which the ever-scrupulous world insists before accepting a piece of gossip as fact. As for Mme. Duval, she was in a desperate plight. Pressed with questions, she was reluctantly compelled to admit that she knew nothing.

After the first fortnight, Gilberte, who dared not walk in her garden, ventured to go out once or twice, but only at times and in directions where she ran no risk of meeting people. Generally in the early morning, she would slip out by a side-door and make her way down to the river by the most shady and roundabout paths of the wood skirting the Logis.

Her almost daily destination was the little chapel of Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau. It was here that she had had her last interview with Guillaume. It was a peaceful spot, where she loved to dream. One day, when she was coming back by a rambling way, she passed the house which was once tenanted by those Despriols who had brought about M. and Mme. de la Vaudrayes’ ruin. The rusty bars of the gate seemed crumbling to pieces. A tangle of weeds and brambles overran the garden. The front of the house was cracking; the slates of the roof were green; the windows were full of swallows’ nests. Everything spoke of desertion and neglect. Nevertheless, Gilberte felt drawn to it.

The gate resisted her efforts and she walked round the garden-wall, feeling sure that she would find a door near a corner which she saw a little way off. She did find one; and it was open, as was the door at the top of the steps leading up to the house.

She had no sooner gone inside than the impression which the old house had made upon her became so distinct as to awaken recognition. It was that curious impression which we sometimes receive in the presence of scenes which we are sure that we have never looked upon and which nevertheless we seem to have always known. It is impossible that we should ever have visited a certain town; and yet the street in which we are is quite familiar to us: we have seen this shop before, that sign-board, this gable, that turning. Where and when? In what bygone existence? Or is it only an illusion awakened in our brain by a series of similar pictures?

“This is the drawing-room,” said Gilberte, before opening the door.

And she amused herself by likewise pointing out, with absolute conviction, the kitchen and the dining-room.

But her astonishment was great indeed when, on the first floor, she entered a large room hung with grey wall-paper, on which birds and butterflies flitted amongst blue flowers. Where had she seen those flowers, those butterflies, those birds before?

She gave a start: in a corner, on the dusty floor, lay a doll, the last stranded relic of all that had once filled the house. And Gilberte knew that doll, knew it beyond a doubt.

She picked it up and, at the first touch of it, was seized with an extraordinary emotion, as though it had been a doll of her childhood, a doll with which she had played at the age of three or four, one of those dolls which little girls treat as babies, lavishing on them all the devotion, the infinite care, the tenderness, the pride and the anxiety of the future mother. And she saw this one, this poor, wretched rag of a doll, with no clothes and only half a head, she saw it, or rather recalled it, clad in a dress of orange silk and a green shawl, with bronze shoes on its feet, a silver chain round its neck and the most wonderful mop of yellow hair upon its head.

She held it for a long time; and it seemed to her that her hands were used to that clumsy body and to the badly-jointed arms and legs. Nothing about the doll disgusted her. She felt as if she could kiss the little porcelain forehead, the prim, painted eyebrows, the chubby cheeks.

There was a faint sound behind her. She turned round and saw a dirty-looking woman with curiously staring eyes and great wisps of white hair all round her head. She was showing her teeth in a fixed and silent laugh. On the linen rag that did duty as a neckerchief hung a queer necklace made of chips of glass, pebbles, corks and twisted grass.

Suddenly the face became contracted with rage: its owner had caught sight of the doll. She ran up to Gilberte, snatched it from her hands and brandished it as though she would have struck the girl with it. But the doll fell to the ground, the threatening gesture ended in an attitude of hesitation and the old woman, with her body bent forward and her eyes staring, gazed at Gilberte.

Gilberte was frightened at first, but became gradually reassured under this steady gaze in which she seemed to feel an ardent and curious affection. She smiled at the old woman, who gave a silent laugh, picked up the doll and handed it to her humbly and gently. Gilberte refused to take it and the old woman grasped her hand and led her to the second floor, to a cupboard crammed with child’s shoes, rattles, broken toys, a little cradle, a chair on wheels and showed them to her with an air of saying:

“Pick where you like, take what you like; I give them to you.”

But none of these things tempted Gilberte. Then the old woman took her down to the garden, led her to an acacia-tree, to a wooden bench, to what remained of a dovecote and, at each halt, questioned her with her eager eyes.

At last, Gilberte felt weary; little by little, since the woman’s arrival, the deserted house had lost its mysterious charm for her; and she began to think of going. Thereupon the old crone, anticipating her wishes, took a key from her pocket and opened the rusty gate. She stooped, as Gilberte went out, and kissed the hem of her dress.

Turning round, a few minutes after, Gilberte saw her standing in the middle of the road, making signs to her.

When she returned to the Logis, she told her adventure to Adèle, who exclaimed:

“Why, it must have been Désirée, the Despriols’ old nurse! She is a poor old madwoman, but quite harmless, and lives near Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau. She does nothing but wander round the house where she was a servant. She has been mad for quite two years, ever since the death of her husband and her three sons. It came upon her all of a sudden....”

“But had the Despriols a child?” asked Gilberte.

“I should think so! A little girl who might have been three or four years old at the time when they went away: a dear little duck; and her nurse adored her. It broke the poor thing’s heart to part with her. Since she went mad, she thinks oftener of the baby than of her own three sons. They did say that she heard about the child and that Mme. Despriol used to write to her.”

“Did you know this Mme. Despriol, Adèle?”

“That I did, at Mme. de la Vaudraye’s, when they lived here.... She was a very nice lady, so cheerful and pleasant; good-looking, too, but, worse luck, so weak with her husband that he did as he liked with her.”

“Mme. de la Vaudraye told me something about some jewels....”

“Oh, that was quite true! There’s no denying it: a thief she was ... and Mme. de la Vaudraye has good reason not to love her. And how she does detest her! And then she was jealous of M. de la Vaudraye, who ventured to flirt just the least bit with Mme. Despriol. You can imagine how mad Mme. de la Vaudraye was! She turns pale to this day, if you mention Henriette Despriol’s name....”

A few days later, Gilberte received another letter from Maître Dufornéril:

“MADEMOISELLE,

“We are making headway with our enquiries and I hope soon to send you the news of our success. This Renaudeau who took over M. Dumas’ business in Berlin is, as we thought, at Hamburg. He has seen the consul and declares that he knew your father for many years, going back to the date when he was still living in France. He refuses, for the present, to reveal M. Dumas’ real name and antecedents; but I have no doubt that this Renaudeau, who is in a state of the greatest poverty, will yield to certain arguments.

“I think I may safely say, therefore, that my next letter will inform you of the name of your parents and the place at which you were born....”

XI

GILBERTE’S NAME

GILBERTE, who was less proof against joy than sorrow, awaited her solicitor’s promised letter with feverish impatience. Another four or five days, a week perhaps; and the mystery would be cleared up and the only obstacle to her marriage swept away.

She kept more and more indoors. What was the use of short, stealthy walks, when her imagination, which was now unfettered, took her across the immensity of the world, on Guillaume’s arm, under Guillaume’s eyes? She tried to read novels, to calm her excitement. But what are fictitious adventures worth at a time when our own destiny is on the point of fulfilment and when it is to be fulfilled in cloudless happiness? The one and only adventure was that which was leading her towards Guillaume. The story began and ended with Guillaume. Guillaume was its sole hero.

“It will come to-morrow,” she said, each day, with the fixed intention of sending the letter, the moment she received it, to Mme. de la Vaudraye.

The morning came and the afternoon and brought no letter. She felt not the least disappointment:

“It will come to-morrow,” she thought, all a-quiver with hope.

The postman became a person of importance in her eyes, a gentleman worth considering. She shot her prettiest smiles at him, as though she were trying to win his confidence and to persuade him that he must have a letter for her in his bag.

Adèle was enraptured:

“Oh, ma’am, you’re becoming as you used to be! And high time too! Yes, I was growing uneasy at seeing you always sad, taking no interest in things and looking so pale. But, there, you’re right: there’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it!”

Released from her silence, Adèle was at last able to repeat all that Domfront had said about the breach and all that was happening now. And Gilberte learnt that Mme. de la Vaudraye’s salon, after closing for three weeks, had reopened. M. Beaufrelant and M. le Hourteulx had been invited. Mme. Duval even predicted an approaching reconciliation with the younger Simare, whose father had never ceased pleading in his favour. At the last reception, the duet from Mireille, as sung by M. Lartiste the elder and Mle. du Bocage, both of whom were making great progress, had been vigorously applauded. But the chief thing was the transformation undergone by Guillaume, whom everybody considered changed for the better.

“They can’t get over it,” said Adèle. “I hear that he is the life and soul of the party and so amiable and so polite: just like a proper young man. He seems on the best of terms with his mother. The young ladies are all gone on him. Bless my soul, he’s a good-looking lad ... and it won’t take long before he’s turned all their heads....”

Gilberte reflected:

“He’s quite right to make himself amiable. It’s the only way to get round his mother.”

Nevertheless, she had to make a certain effort to look upon this as the only explanation of Guillaume’s conduct.

Two more days followed without a letter. Then, one morning, Adèle came back from her shopping:

“Here’s a bit of news!” she said. “There’s no harm in telling you, now that you’ve got over things. M. Guillaume is engaged to the eldest Charmeron girl.”

Gilberte burst out laughing:

“It’s one of Mme. Duval’s matches!”

“No, no, I hear it from others as well: the Bottentuits’ servant told me; so did M. Beaufrelant’s gardener. Mme. de la Vaudraye announced it last night when every one was there.”

Not for a moment did Gilberte admit the possibility of so great a perfidy. Nothing evil could ever come from within her: no suspicions, no doubts, no base thoughts; and whatever came from without broke against her love like impotent waves. How could she have pictured treachery, who did not know that treachery existed?

She was therefore very cheerful all day long. Nevertheless, at sunset, an irresistible force drew her to the ruined summer-house. Guillaume was not among the rocks in the valley.

Nor did she see him the next day. That night, she had a touch of fever and her mind wandered a little, mingling the picture of Guillaume with that of Mlle. Charmeron.

She laughed merrily at all this on waking. Nothing could touch her faith in her lover. She was as sure of him as of herself.

She rose in good spirits, resolved to be happy came what might. And she was happy: a plucky creature judging others by her own lofty standards, whose nerves and woman’s instinct may be alarmed for a moment, without allowing a breath to disturb the serenity of her soul.

She played and sang until lunch-time. After lunch, she strolled in her garden and picked some flowers. When she went in, she found Guillaume waiting for her in the drawing-room:

“You ... you ...!” she murmured, half-swooning with emotion.

She was obliged to sit down and they remained at some distance from each other, not daring to raise their eyes. It seemed to Gilberte as though her whole life would not be enough to take in all the joy that wrapped her round. How right had she been to be happy in spite of all things and to prepare herself for this greater happiness, which she could never have borne, had she been sad and suspicious.

Guillaume asked:

“Did you not meet my mother? She is looking for you in the garden.”

“Is your mother here?”

“Oh, Gilberte, would I have come without her, when I would not even go over there, among the rocks, for fear of displeasing you?”

She recalled her disappointment of the last evening and the evening before and was on the point of accusing herself ... but of what? Had she lent a willing ear to the calumnies of the town? She said, simply:

“I am glad of what you have done for Mme. de la Vaudraye.”

“What have I done?”

“Was it not a sacrifice to be at her parties?”

He went up to Gilberte:

“A sacrifice? Not at all.... Ah, that’s because you don’t know what has happened during the last few days!... Why, I am prepared to do all that she wishes and to take an interest in all that interests her and to like everything that she likes!... If you only knew, Gilberte.... Listen ... or rather, no, I prefer that she should tell you....”

“Oh,” cried Gilberte, “if they are hopeful words, precious words, why not say them yourself, Guillaume? Will they not be sweeter if I hear them from your lips? Speak, Guillaume ... I want them to be associated in my memory with the sound of your voice ... please, please....”

She besought him with her gentle, loving smile. He at once said:

“Very well, Gilberte, I will.”

He was interrupted by Adèle, bringing in a letter on a tray. Gilberte took the letter and, while the servant was leaving the room, mechanically cast her eyes upon the postmark. A cry escaped her:

“Guillaume!”

Her fingers trembled. She could only whisper:

“A letter from Dieppe ... from my solicitor.... Oh, I was waiting for it so anxiously!... Think, Guillaume: it brings me a name ... nothing can separate us now....”

The excitement was too much for her. She felt herself small and feeble in the grip of an over-great happiness. And, covering her face with her crossed hands, as was her wont at moments of perturbation, she wept tears of delight.

Some minutes passed in silence. She heard Guillaume open the garden-door. Steps approached, some one sat down beside her, a hand unlocked her fingers: it was Mme. de la Vaudraye.

She shrank back imperceptibly. But Mme. de la Vaudraye said:

“Gilberte, are you afraid of me?”

And the voice was so gentle that Gilberte was quite stirred. She looked at her through her tears and hardly recognized her. Her features had lost their customary hardness, her countenance the expression of implacable pride that deprived it of all its charm. And this charm now showed itself in the eyes, which had lost their severity, in the pathetic wrinkles of the forehead, in all that sad and withered face.

“Gilberte, you wished to be my daughter: do you wish it still?”

She had no time to reply. Guillaume had rushed up to both of them and was kissing them by turns. And he said, fervently:

“Let us love her, Gilberte. We owe her the greatest gratitude for what she is doing. It means the sacrifice of her most cherished ideas and she has consented to that sacrifice of her own accord.”

“Come, Guillaume, don’t make me out better than I am!” protested Mme. de la Vaudraye, in a playful tone. “Are you quite sure that I have not merely yielded to sordid motives? If Gilberte had been a poor girl, without any money....”

“Oh, madame,” said Gilberte, “that counts for so little!”

“Yes, with you and Guillaume, who are young and think only of your happiness, but not with me, who have suffered so much from the change in my fortunes. I can’t help it: one cannot alter at my age; I have a name of which I am very vain; and my dream has always been to restore it to all its brilliancy.”

She playfully stroked Gilberte’s hair:

“And think of all my blandishments, from the very beginning, Mme. Armand! You can’t say that I wasn’t clever in getting round you and making you do what I wanted! Well, then, one day, you tell me that you have bought up my family estates and you offer to reinstate me as mistress of the Logis. How could I have the courage to refuse?”

She displayed a sort of unspoken wish to make amends to Gilberte, a wish which her pride prevented her from revealing as openly as her heart would have prompted her, but which, nevertheless, appeared in her manner of confessing, as though in fun, the shabby side of her behaviour. Gilberte had too much delicacy of mind to take pleasure in this admission and replied:

“It’s your son’s happiness which you have not had the courage to reject. It is so easy to tell that all your ambitions and all your hopes are only for him.”

But Guillaume was less indulgent and exclaimed:

“Really, mother, one would think that you were trying to cheapen your consent! Come, tell her of our talks of the past fortnight, tell her that you know the whole story of our love and that you understand Gilberte, as she deserves, and that that is why you agree.”

Mme. de la Vaudraye made a last stand. It was the final effort of her vanity. She seemed undecided, bewildered, staggering, like one trying to keep her footing before falling; and then, suddenly vanquished, she took Gilberte in her arms:

“Yes, child, yes, it was you who conquered me ... I have come to you not because you are rich and generous, but because you are good and sincere and the noblest creature that ever lived.... Yes, I have thought of the future, from the start, and I think of it still; but, also from the start, your goodness has been working on me as on every one else. I loved you apart from any sort of calculation. And, after refusing my consent, it was no use my heaping up reasons to confirm me in my resolve: I could only remember your dear gentleness, your innocence, your childlike simplicity.”

“Oh,” whispered Gilberte, “how happy you make me!”

“You shall always be happy, child, where it depends on me: that I promise you.... As for Guillaume, oh, if you knew how he speaks of his sweetheart! I know you now as well as he does. But did I need his words in order to know you? What he feels in you, that delicate bloom and innocence, I have always felt. And I know all the power of your eyes: they bring purity and peace ... one is better for looking at them ... one sees more clearly....”

Gilberte, in her confusion, nestled her head against the friendly shoulder. She was delaying, as a joy in reserve, the news of her recovered name; and the thought of the pleasure which she held in store gave her tiny thrills of impatience. She said, in a whisper:

“Then ... my name ... my past....”

“Rubbish!” cried Mme. de la Vaudraye. “What did all that matter where you were concerned, my innocent Gilberte? Those prejudices fade away into nothing when we look at them with your eyes and judge them with your candour.”

“Do you mean that?” asked the girl, releasing herself and looking at her with a radiant air. “Have you no regrets?”

“None at all.”

“Then read this letter, which has just come: it will tell you the secret ... I too have a family.... Ah, madame, you will have no need to blush for me!”

Mme. de la Vaudraye did not at first understand; then, when Gilberte had told her of the search conducted by the solicitor, she could not conceal her satisfaction:

“So you have succeeded? Oh, I am glad!... Why should I deny it? I was bothered in advance about what other people would say: pardon my weakness, I can confess it now that I have accepted you as a daughter before knowing that your parents were worthy of you. The fear that they might not be was the only obstacle; and that was irrevocable. But I overcame that fear. Something to boast of, was it not? As though it were difficult to know them, when one knows you!”

She took the letter, felt it and said:

“We shall soon learn the name of two good people. Your father must have had your fascination, Gilberte; and your mother: I picture your mother as an exquisite, charming creature like yourself.... Did you love her very much?”

“More than my life, madame.”

“Here, Guillaume, read it out.”

Guillaume took and opened the envelope. As he was unfolding the letter which it contained, he had a momentary hesitation.

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Mme. de la Vaudraye.

“Nothing,” he said, presently.

And he unfolded the letter.

They were there, all three of them, affected in different ways, but anxious and even a little timorous, as we are at the approach of the solemn events of our lives, even when we expect nothing from them but pleasure and satisfaction.

“Well?” asked Gilberte, who was certainly the least excited of the three.

Guillaume made up his mind and read, aloud:

“MADEMOISELLE,

“As I expected, our friend Renaudeau did not persist in his silence very long and, without further procrastination, has told us as much of your father’s story as interests you. We now know that, at the time when he was living in France....”

Guillaume stopped. He hesitated once more and the letter fell from his hands to his knees.

Mme. de la Vaudraye grew impatient:

“What are you thinking of, my boy?”

He replied, in a dreamy voice:

“I am thinking that we are about to violate the secret of two persons who must surely have had their reasons for keeping it so carefully. They may have been the offspring of two rival families, or a pair of lovers who were kept apart by convention, but whose hearts drew them together. Who can tell? In any case, don’t you think that their secret belongs to them and that there is no reason that authorizes us to violate it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, mother, tell me what reasons you can have, tell me before that angel who is listening to us! You treated them as rubbish just now: have they become graver reasons since? State them: express your fear of public opinion, your dread of evil tongues, your horror of comment; and, as you do so, look into that pair of child-eyes and ask yourself if they understand what you are saying.”

She protested feebly:

“What a strange wish, Guillaume! There is something which you are keeping back.”

“Yes,” he cried, rising from his chair, “there is something else which I do not see clearly.... It is my love that objects.... I don’t want to lift the veil that shrouds Gilberte.... I prefer her so.... She is more mine like this....”

He was walking up and down excitedly. Gilberte held out her arms to him. He flung himself on his knees before her:

“Gilberte, I beseech you, remain for me the dear unknown whom I loved from the first day that I saw her. I do not know what prompts me to beg this of you, but I want you to give me the intense joy of feeling that you exist only through me, that you are commencing your life with me, that you are heaping still more darkness upon your past so that your eyes may be obliged to turn still more towards the future. Be the unknown lady of the Logis. Be the unknown who mingled her dreams with mine, the dear unknown who came from I know not where, but who came to me, of that I am certain.”

She hung on his words. He stammered, incoherently:

“Oh, you will do it ... I feel it!... And yet, Gilberte, listen ... the secret is yours ... you yourself have the right to know....”

She answered, with a smile that lifted him into the seventh heaven:

“Guillaume, I do not want to know what you will not know.... Besides, it matters so little! I was only happy for your mother’s sake.”

He bent his head and kissed her hands. Presently, they heard Mme. de la Vaudraye tearing up the letter. She said, simply:

“It shall be as you wish, my dear children. But don’t you think, Guillaume, that there will be difficulties, that the law requires ...?

“Never mind the difficulties!” he cried. “We shall see to that later. Everything will be settled as we intend, I am sure of it.”

A long silence followed, full of grave sweetness. At the end of it, however, Guillaume, smitten with a vague remorse, murmured:

“And so, dearest, you will never know your name?”

She smiled:

“But I know my name: is it not Gilberte de la Vaudraye?”

“But your mother?”

“Oh, my mother!” she said, with shining eyes. “Mother’s name was mamma!”

THE END

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

all this preamable=> all this preamble {pg 64}

brillant talker=> brilliant talker {pg 86}

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Table of Contents

THE EYES OF INNOCENCE

CONTENTS

THE EYES OF INNOCENCE

I GILBERTE

II THE SOLITARY

III THE UNKNOWN

IV AN EVENING AT MME. DE LA VAUDRAYE’S

V THE SUITORS

VI A NEW FRIEND

VII GILBERTE’S TWO FRIENDS

VIII THE APPOITMENT

IX AFFIANCED

X THE DESERTED HOUSE

XI GILBERTE’S NAME

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