Promise me, darling wife--oh,
Heaven help me, how hard it is!--promise me, when the first smart of the
pain is over, that you will try to be happy."
She bent her head, but spoke no word.
"Promise me too, Madaline, that, if sickness and sorrow should come to
you, you will send for me at once."
"I promise," she said.
"A few words more, and I have done. Tell me what course you wish me to
pursue toward the duchess."
"I have no wish in the matter," she replied, directly. "She was kind to
me once; for the sake of that kindness I forgive her. She forgot that I
must suffer in her wish to punish you. I shall leave her to Heaven."
"And I," he said, "will do the same; voluntarily I will never see her or
speak to her again."
There remained for him only to say farewell. He took her little white
hand; it was as cold as death.
"Farewell, my love," he said--"farewell!"
He kissed her face with slow, sweet reverence, as he would have kissed
the face of a dead woman whom he loved; and then he was gone.
Like one in a dream, she heard the wheel of a carriage rolling away. She
stretched out her hands with a faint cry.
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