"If you come any further, sir," exclaimed the Marquise, growing paler,
"I shall fling myself out of the window!"
She sprang to the window, flung it open, and stood with one foot on
the ledge, her hand upon the iron balustrade, her face turned towards
Gaston.
"Go out! go out!" she cried, "or I will throw myself over."
At that dreadful cry the servants began to stir, and M. de Nueil fled
like a criminal.
When he reached his home again he wrote a few lines and gave them to
his own man, telling him to give the letter himself into Mme. de
Beauseant's hands, and to say that it was a matter of life and death
for his master. The messenger went. M. de Nueil went back to the
drawing-room where his wife was still murdering the /Caprice/, and sat
down to wait till the answer came. An hour later, when the /Caprice/
had come to an end, and the husband and wife sat in silence on
opposite sides of the hearth, the man came back from Valleroy and gave
his master his own letter, unopened.
M. de Nueil went into a small room beyond the drawing-room, where he
had left his rifle, and shot himself.
The swift and fatal ending of the drama, contrary as it is to all the
habits of young France, is only what might have been expected. Those
who have closely observed, or known for themselves by delicious
experience, all that is meant by the perfect union of two beings, will
understand Gaston de Nueil's suicide perfectly well.
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