"It will blight the whole of her life," said I; "she is so innocent of evil, and she loves him so much."

I took up my hat as I spoke, and followed Madame Jeannel downstairs and into the street. When we reached her house, I left her in her own little parlour upon the entresol, and with a resolute step but a heavy heart I went alone to confront the strange woman in Noemi's room. Alas! the worst that could happen had already befallen.

Noemi had returned from her walk during the absence of her landlady, and I opened the door upon a terrible scene. My poor child stood before me, with a white scared face, and heaving breast, upon which was pinned a bunch of autumn violets, Antoine's last gift to her.

Her slender figure, her fair hair, her pallid complexion looked ghostlike in the uncertain twilight; she seemed like a troubled spirit, beautiful and sorely distressed, but there was no shame in her lovely face, nor any sense of guilt. Seeing me enter, she uttered a cry of relief, and sprang forward as though to seek protection.

"Speak to her, monsieur!" she exclaimed in a voice of piercing entreaty; "oh, speak to her and ask her what it all means! She says she is Antoine's wife!"

The strange woman whose back had been turned towards the door when I opened it, looked round at the words, and her face met mine. She was a brunette, with sharp black eyes and an inflexible mouth, a face which beside Noemi's seemed like a dark cloud beside clear sunlight.

"Yes indeed!" she cried; and her voice was half choked with contending anger and despair, "I am his wife; and what then is she? I tracked him here. He is always away from me now. I found a letter of hers signed with her name; she writes to him as if she loved him! See!"

She flung upon the table a crumpled sc.r.a.p of paper, and suddenly burying her face in her hands, burst into a torrent of pa.s.sionate tears and sobs. Noemi stood silent and watched her, terrified and wondering. I closed the door softly, and approaching the unfortunate woman, laid my hand upon her shoulder.

"It is your husband who is alone to blame," I whispered to her.

"Do not revile this innocent girl; she suffers quite as much as you do,--perhaps even more, for she was betrothed to him years ago."

My grief for Noemi, and my resentment against Antoine made me imprudent; I spoke unjustly, but the provocation was great.

"You take her part!" she cried, repelling me indignantly. "Innocent-- she innocent? Bah! She must have known he was married, for why else did he not marry her? Do you think me a child to be fooled by such a tale?"

"No," answered I sternly, looking away from her at Noemi. "You are not a child, madame, but she is one! Had she been a woman like yourself, your husband would never have deceived her. She trusted him wholly."

With a gesture that was almost fierce in its pride, Antoine's wife turned her back upon Noemi, and moved towards the door. "I thank my G.o.d," she said solemnly, choking down her sobs, and bending her dark brows upon me, "that I was never such an innocent as she is!

I am not your dupe, monsieur; I know well enough what you are, and what it is that const.i.tutes your right to defend her. The neighbors know her story; trust them for finding it out and repeating it. This room belongs to you, monsieur; your money paid for everything in it, and your 'innocent' there no doubt is included in the bargain. Keep her to yourself for the future; Antoine's foot shall never again be set in this wicked house!"

She opened the door with the last words, and vanished into the darkness without.

For a moment there was a deep silence, the voice which had just ceased seemed to me to ring and echo around the dim, still room.

The sense of a great shame was upon me; I dared not lift my eyes to Noemi's face.

Suddenly a faint cry startled me. She stretched her arms towards me and fell on her knees at my feet.

"O monsieur! Antoine is lost! My heart is dead!" Then she struck her breast wildly with her clenched hand, and swooned upon the floor.

None of us ever saw Antoine again after that terrible evening.

Whether he had been most weak or most wicked we could not tell; but, for my part I always believed that he had really loved Noemi, and that his marriage had been one of worldly convenience, contracted, in an evil hour, for the sake of gain. His wife was rich, Noemi was a beggar. As for her, poor child, she never uttered a word of reproach against him; never a gesture of impatience, or an expression of complaint betrayed her suffering. She had spent all her innocent life upon her love, and with the love her life also went from her. Day after day she lay on her bed like a flower crushed and fading slowly. There were no signs of organic disease in her, there was no appreciable malady; her heart was broken, so said Madame Jeannel, and more than that the wisest could not say.

Bambin, dimly comprehending that some great sorrow had befallen his dear mistress, lay always at her feet, watching her with eyes full of tender and wistful affection, refusing to leave her by night or by day. It must have comforted her somewhat to see in him, at least, the evidence of one true and faithful love.

So white and spirituelle she grew as she lay there, day by day, so delicately lovely, her deep l.u.s.trous eyes shining as with some inward light, and her hair of gold surrounding her head like the aureole of a pictured saint, that at times I fancied she was becoming dematerialised before our eyes; her spirit seemed as it were to grow visible, as though in the intensity of its pure fire the mere earthly body which had contained it were being re-absorbed and consumed.

Sometimes in the evenings her pulse quickened and her cheeks flushed with the hectic touch of fever; it was the only symptom of physical disorder I ever detected in her;--but even that was slight,--the temperature of her system was hardly affected by it.

So she lay, her body fading, day after day and hour after hour.

Madame Jeannel was deeply concerned, for she was a good woman, and could sympathise with others in sorrow, but nothing that she could say or do seemed to reach the senses of Noemi. Indeed, at times I fancied the poor child had no longer eyes or ears for the world from which she was pa.s.sing away so strangely; she looked as though she were already beginning life in some other sphere and on some other plane than ours, and could see and hear only sights and sounds of which our material natures had no cognisance.

"C'est le chagrin, monsieur," said Madame Jeannel; "c'est comme ca que le chagrin tue,--toujours."

Early in the third week of December I received my summons to pa.s.s the final examination for the M.D. degree. The day was bitterly cold, a keen wind swept the empty streets and drove the new-fallen snow into drift-heaps at every corner. Along the boulevards booths and baraques for the sale of New Year's gifts were already in course of erection, the shops were gay with bright colored bonbonnieres.

Children, merry with antic.i.p.ations of good things coming, pressed round the various tempting displays and noisily disputed their respective merits. All the streets were filled with mirth and laughter and preparations for festivity, and close by, in her little lonely room, Noemi lay dying of a broken heart!

I underwent my ordeal with success; yet as I quitted the examination- room and descended into the quadrangle of the Ecole, crowded with sauntering groups of garrulous students, my spirit was heavy within me, and the expression of my face could hardly have been that of a young man who has safely pa.s.sed the Rubicon of scientific apprenticeship, and who sees the laurels and honors of the world within his reach.

The world? The very thought of its possible homage repelled me, for I knew that its best successes and its loudest praise are accorded to men whose hearts are of steel and whose lives are corrupt. I knew that still, as of old, it slays the innocent and the ingenuous and stones the pure of spirit.

Escaping somewhat impatiently from the congratulations of the friends and colleagues whom I chanced to encounter in the quadrangle, I returned gloomily home and found upon my table a twisted note in which was written this brief message:--

"Pray, come at once, monsieur, she cannot live long now.

I dare not leave her, and she begs to see you. --Marie Jeannel"

With a shaking hand I thrust the paper into my vest and hastened to obey its summons. Never had the distance between my house and Noemi's been so long to traverse; never had the stairs which led to her room seemed to me so many or so steep. At length I gained the door; it stood ajar; I pushed it open and entered. Madame Jeannel sat at the foot of the little white-draped bed; Bambin lay beside his mistress; the only sound in the room was the crackling of the burning logs on the hearth. As I entered, Madame Jeannel turned her head and looked at me; her eyes were heavy with tears, and she spoke in tones that were hushed and tremulous with the awe which the presence of death inspires.

"Monsieur, you come too late. She is dead."

I sprang forward with a cry of horror.

"Dead?" I repeated, "Noemi dead?"

White and still she lay--a broken lily--beautiful and sweet even in death; her eyes were closed lightly, and upon her lovely lips was the first smile I had seen there since the day which had stricken her innocent life into the dust. Her right hand rested on Bambin's head, in her left she held the piece of silver ribbon I had given her,--the ribbon she had hoped to wear at her wedding.

"They are for you," said Madame Jeannel softly. "She said you were fond of Bambin, and he of you, and that you must take care of him and keep him with you always. And as for the ribbon,--she wished you to take it for her sake, that it might be a remembrance of her in time to come."

I fell on my knees beside the bed and wept aloud.

"Hush, hush!" whispered Madame Jeannel, bending over me; "it is best as it is, she is gone to the angels of G.o.d."

Science has ceased to believe in angels, but in the faith of good women they live still.

The chief work of the "wise" among us seems to me to consist in the destruction of all the beautiful hopes and loves and beliefs of the earth; of all that since the beginning of time till now has consoled, or purified, or brought peace to the hearts of men.

Some day, perhaps, in the long-distant future, the voice of Nature may speak to us more clearly through the lips of a n.o.bler and purer system of science than any we now know, and we may learn that Matter is not all in all, nor human love and desire given in vain; but that torn hearts may be healed and ruined lives perfected in a higher spiritual existence, where, "beyond these voices, there is peace."

Meanwhile Noemi's body rests in its quiet grave, and upon the faithful bosom lies the silver cross which her lover gave her.

She was one of those who could endure all things for love's sake, but shame and falsehood broke her steadfast heart. And it was the hand of her beloved which dealt the blow of which she died!

VI. The Little Old Man's Story

"O love, I have loved you! O my soul, I have lost you!"

--Aurora Leigh

Chapter I.