"Madame la
Marquise has left the chateau," said the man.
M. de Nueil, in amazement, broke the seal and read:--
"MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of
becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit
that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as
you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only
be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not
fear to carry a remorse all through your own . . ."
It was his own letter, written to the Marquise as she set out for
Geneva nine years before. At the foot of it Claire de Bourgogne had
written, "Monsieur, you are free."
M. de Nueil went to his mother at Manerville. In less than three weeks
he married Mlle. Stephanie de la Rodiere.
If this commonplace story of real life ended here, it would be to some
extent a sort of mystification. The first man you meet can tell you a
better. But the widespread fame of the catastrophe (for, unhappily,
this is a true tale), and all the memories which it may arouse in
those who have known the divine delights of infinite passion, and lost
them by their own deed, or through the cruelty of fate,--these things
may perhaps shelter the story from criticism.
Mme. la Marquise de Beauseant never left Valleroy after her parting
from M.
Pages:
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75