I cried out, and she returned to me.

"Oh! in heaven's name, speak to me!" I said; "so that I may be sure that it is you!"

"Yes, yes, it's I, it's your Nicette. Oh! Monsieur Dorsan, pray don't talk any more; the doctor has strictly forbidden it. That's the reason I didn't want you to see me."

"Dear Nicette! as if the sight of you was not more powerful than all their medicines! It is you! it is really you!"

I took her hands and pressed them and held them to my heart; I no longer had strength to speak. She tried to calm me, but she was as deeply moved as I was; the tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped on me; but how sweet they were to us both!

"So it was you, Nicette, who nursed me during my illness?"

"Wasn't it my duty? Could I have trusted others to do it?"

"Then you were my neighbor?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Cruel girl! you concealed yourself from me!"

"I thought that the sight of me would not give you any pleasure."

"You did not think that!"

"You are married."

"But you see that I have ceased to live with my wife."

"I didn't dare show myself to you, for fear that would make you leave your lodgings."

"What an idea! O Nicette!"

"But I couldn't resist the longing to remind you of me; and that is why you found the bouquet."

"Ah! it is to it that I am indebted for finding you. Nicette, don't leave me again, I implore you!"

"Oh, no! I won't leave you again, monsieur, as you allow me to stay.

But, I beg of you, be calm, don't talk any more, and take a little rest."

I yielded to her entreaties; in truth, I did need to pull myself together. Nicette was with me, it was to her nursing that I owed my life! I had difficulty in realizing my happiness. Ah! how blissfully happy I was! and yet, some regret was mingled with my joy, when I thought that Raymond---- But if that were not true, I should be too happy.

Every day my convalescence advanced a step; but I was not content unless Nicette was by my side; so she never left me. She seemed surprised by the feeling that I manifested for her; I saw in her eyes all the intoxicating joy that it caused her. It was plain, therefore, that she still loved me. Often I flattered myself that it was so, and then I abandoned myself to the affection that she aroused in me, I basked blissfully in the fire of her glances, I laid my head on her breast and inhaled her sweet breath. But when the image of Raymond appeared before me, all my happiness vanished, my heart swelled, and I moved away from Nicette.

She noticed these abrupt transitions from joy to gloom, these sudden changes in my manner toward her.

"Are you thinking of your wife?" she asked me one day, when I had moved away from her and sighed.

"No," I said, gazing at her in distress; "I am thinking of Raymond."

"Of Monsieur Raymond; and that makes you sigh?"

"Can you wonder at it? Did he not rob me of the greatest of blessings?"

"What do you mean? I don't understand you."

"Ah! Nicette, you loved him, and yet you say that you don't understand me!"

"I--love him! Great G.o.d! who told you that?"

"I saw it; I know that he was your lover."

"My lover! O heaven! then I am a most despicable creature in your eyes!

And you believed that!"

Tears suffocated her; she could say no more. I ran to her, threw my arms about her, and covered her with kisses; the mere suspicion that Raymond had lied to me was perfect bliss.

"Nicette, dear Nicette, tell me how it all happened? I saw him in your shop; he held your hands--and you admitted it yourself."

"Ah! could you believe that I loved anybody but you? I, who would give my life for you--who have never given a thought to anybody else since I first saw you! Oh! forgive me for loving you so much; perhaps it offends you, but I must tell you now the whole secret of my heart. When I lived in my shop, the only joy I had was to see you; every day I expected or hoped to see you pa.s.s; but it happened very seldom. I used to bring you bouquets as a pledge of my grat.i.tude, and I would seize a moment when the concierge was out to run up and tie them on your door. Sometimes I saw you go by with a lady on your arm. Then I used to cry, for I would say to myself: 'I shall never walk like that with him'--When I went a long while without seeing you, I used to long to know something about you, but I didn't dare go to your house to inquire. One day Monsieur Raymond stopped to buy some flowers of me; he looked at me very hard, recognized me, I suppose, and came again the next day. While he was looking at my flowers, he paid me compliments, but I didn't listen to him. Then he mentioned you, and I was very glad to listen to him. He noticed that, for every time he came he talked about you, and I always urged him to stay. He was the only person from whom I heard anything about you; what he said made me sad, and yet I wanted to hear it. He told me that you had twenty mistresses, that you loved all the women, and that you had made fun of me; then he showed me the bouquets I had carried to you, which he said you had given to him."

"The miserable cur! And you believed him, Nicette?"

"Alas! when I saw you come to buy flowers with that lady who--who called you her dear friend and looked at me with such a sneering expression, I thought he had told me the truth. That made me so unhappy that I couldn't stay at home; I went out and walked about the streets most of the night, hardly knowing what I did. It was while I was out that you came. The next morning, when you came again, you seemed to be very angry, and you left me very suddenly, you know; I wanted to call you back, but I didn't dare. That evening Monsieur Raymond came; he talked about you; I cried, and he tried to comfort me; he may have taken my hands in his, but if he did I didn't feel it; I was thinking only of you. He came again the next night, and then he wanted to talk about himself: he said that he adored me, and a lot of other things; but he said nothing more about you, and I wouldn't listen to him. I didn't let him in again; he wrote me a long love letter, calling me cruel and wicked. I have kept it to show you. At last he let me alone. I never saw you after that. I came to this house and learned that you had gone away, but had kept your apartment; that made me hope you would return. But one day Monsieur Raymond pa.s.sed my shop, and, being delighted to make me unhappy, told me you were married. Alas! I should have expected it; I knew that there must be many other women who loved you; and yet, I became so miserable that I didn't have the courage to keep my shop; besides, I was rich enough to get along without it. I came to this house and found that the other apartment on your landing was empty, so I hired it on the spot. That brought me nearer to these rooms where I pa.s.sed that night which changed the whole course of my life. But when you came back here to live, I didn't dare to let you see me, because I was afraid that the sight of me would not be pleasant to you.--That is the truth; do you believe now that I have loved any man but you?"

When she had finished her story, Nicette went for Raymond's letter and brought it to me. I no longer needed it to induce me to believe her; but that final proof thoroughly convinced me that I had been deceived by appearances and by Raymond's lies.

Ah! how delicious was that moment when I found that Nicette was worthy of all my love! I hastened to tell her, in my turn, all that had happened to me, all that I had felt when I believed that she was Raymond's mistress. She wept with joy and love as she listened; she gazed into my face, took my hands, and held them to her heart.

"So you did love me," she said, "and you love me still! Ah! how happy I am!"

The story of my marriage and of Pelagie's conduct caused her the greatest surprise; she could not conceive how my wife could fail to love me. Dear Nicette! But for that miserable Raymond, I should still have been free! but the ties which bound me to Pelagie were broken by nature, if not by man.

"What!" she said; "are you not going back to your wife?"

"Never. That resolution was irrevocable before I found you; it can bring no blame upon you."

"And you really want me to stay with you?"

"Do I want you to! Could I live without you now?"

"Oh! how happy I am going to be, monsieur!"

"Dear Nicette! no more _monsieur_, no more formal address! I am your friend, your lover, and you are the whole world to me! Call me Eugene, your Eugene!"

The evening pa.s.sed away in this blissful conversation.

"I must go to my room now," said Nicette; "it is time to go to sleep, and you need it."

"Oh! happiness has restored my health. But you are my nurse, and you must not leave me."