Everything, then, was only misery, grief, unhappiness and death.

Everyone tried to deceive, everyone lied, everyone made you suffer and weep. Where could one find a little rest and happiness? In another existence no doubt, when the soul is freed from the trials of earth.

And she began to ponder on this insoluble mystery.

A tender and curious thought came to her mind. It was to read over in this last watch, as though they were a litany, the old letters that her mother loved. It seemed to her that she was about to perform a delicate and sacred duty which would give pleasure to little mother in the other world.

She rose, opened the writing desk and took from the lower drawer ten little packages of yellow letters, tied and arranged in order, side by side. She placed them all on the bed over her mother's heart from a sort of sentiment and began to read them. They were old letters that savored of a former century. The first began, "My dear little granddaughter," then again "My dear little girl," "My darling," "My dearest daughter," then "My dear child," "My dear Adelaide," "My dear daughter," according to the periods--childhood, youth or young womanhood. They were all full of little insignificant details and tender words, about a thousand little matters, those simple but important events of home life, so petty to outsiders: "Father has the grip; poor Hortense burnt her finger; the cat, 'Croquerat,' is dead; they have cut down the pine tree to the right of the gate; mother lost her prayerbook on the way home from church, she thinks it was stolen."

All these details affected her. They seemed like revelations, as though she had suddenly entered the past secret heart life of little mother. She looked at her lying there and suddenly began to read aloud, to read to the dead, as though to distract, to console her.

And the dead woman appeared to be pleased.

Jeanne tossed the letters as she read them to the foot of the bed. She untied another package. It was a new handwriting. She read: "I cannot do without your caresses. I love you so that I am almost crazy."

That was all; no signature.

She put back the letter without understanding its meaning. The address was certainly "Madame la Baronne Le Perthuis des Vauds."

Then she opened another: "Come this evening as soon as he goes out; we shall have an hour together. I worship you." In another: "I pa.s.sed the night longing in vain for you, longing to look into your eyes, to press my lips to yours, and I am insane enough to throw myself from the window at the thought that you are another's...."

Jeanne was perfectly bewildered. What did that mean? To whom, for whom, from whom were these words of love?

She went on reading, coming across fresh impa.s.sioned declarations, appointments with warnings as to prudence, and always at the end the six words: "Be sure to burn this letter!"

At last she opened an ordinary note, accepting an invitation to dinner, but in the same handwriting and signed: "Paul d'Ennemare,"

whom the baron called, whenever he spoke of him, "My poor old Paul,"

and whose wife had been the baroness' dearest friend.

Then a suspicion, which immediately became a certainty, flashed across Jeanne's mind: He had been her mother's lover.

And, almost beside herself, she suddenly threw aside these infamous letters as she would have thrown off some venomous reptile and ran to the window and began to cry piteously. Then, collapsing, she sank down beside the wall, and hiding her face in the curtain so that no one should hear her, she sobbed bitterly as if in hopeless despair.

She would have remained thus probably all night, if she had not heard a noise in the adjoining room that made her start to her feet. It might be her father. And all the letters were lying on the floor! He would have to open only one of them to know all! Her father!

She darted into the other room and seizing the letters in handfuls, she threw them all into the fireplace, those of her grandparents as well as those of the lover; some that she had not looked at and some that had remained tied up in the drawers of the desk. She then took one of the tapers that burned beside the bed and set fire to this pile of letters. When they were reduced to ashes she went back to the open window, as though she no longer dared to sit beside the dead, and began to cry again with her face in her hands: "Oh, my poor mamma! oh, my poor mamma!"

The stars were paling. It was the cool hour that precedes the dawn.

The moon was sinking on the horizon and turning the sea to mother of pearl. The recollection of the night she pa.s.sed at the window when she first came to the "Poplars" came to Jeanne's mind. How far away it seemed, how everything was changed, how different the future now seemed!

The sky was becoming pink, a joyous, love-inspiring, enchanting pink.

She looked at it in surprise, as at some phenomenon, this radiant break of day, and asked herself if it were possible that, on a planet where such dawns were found, there should be neither joy nor happiness.

A noise at the door made her start. It was Julien. "Well," he said, "are you not very tired?"

She murmured, "No," happy at being no longer alone. "Go and rest now,"

he said. She kissed her mother a long, sad kiss; then she went to her room.

The next day pa.s.sed in the usual attentions to the dead. The baron arrived toward evening. He wept for some time.

The funeral took place the following day. After pressing a last kiss on her mother's icy forehead and seeing the coffin nailed down, Jeanne left the room. The invited guests would soon arrive.

Gilberte was the first to come, and she threw herself sobbing on her friend's shoulder. Women in black presently entered the room one after another, people whom Jeanne did not know. The Marquise de Coutelier and the Vicomtesse de Briseville embraced her. She suddenly saw Aunt Lison gliding in behind her. She turned round and kissed her tenderly.

Julien came in, dressed all in black, elegant, very important, pleased at seeing so many people. He asked his wife some question in a low tone and added confidentially: "All the n.o.bility are here; it will be a fine affair." And he walked away, gravely bowing to the ladies. Aunt Lison and Comtesse Gilberte alone remained with Jeanne during the service for the dead. The comtesse kissed her repeatedly, exclaiming: "My poor dear, my poor dear!"

When Comte de Fourville came to fetch his wife he was also crying as though it were for his own mother.

CHAPTER X

RETRIBUTION

The following days were very sad and dreary, as they always are when there has been a death in the house. And, in addition, Jeanne was crushed at the thought of what she had discovered; her last shred of confidence had been destroyed with the destruction of her faith.

Little father, after a short stay, went away to try and distract his thoughts from his grief, and the large house, whose former masters were leaving it from time to time, resumed its usual calm and monotonous course.

Then Paul fell ill, and Jeanne was almost beside herself, not sleeping for ten days, and scarcely tasting food. He recovered, but she was haunted by the idea that he might die. Then what should she do? What would become of her? And there gradually stole into her heart the hope that she might have another child. She dreamed of it, became obsessed with the idea. She longed to realize her old dream of seeing two little children around her; a boy and a girl.

But since the affair of Rosalie she and Julien had lived apart. A reconciliation seemed impossible in their present situation. Julien loved some one else, she knew it; and the very thought of suffering his approach filled her with repugnance. She had no one left whom she could consult. She resolved to go and see Abbe Picot and tell him, under the seal of confession, all that weighed upon her mind in this matter.

He was reading from his breviary in his little garden planted with fruit trees when she arrived.

After a few minutes' conversation on indifferent matters, she faltered, her color rising: "I want to confess, Monsieur l'Abbe."

He looked at her in astonishment, as he pushed his spectacles back on his forehead; then he began to laugh. "You surely have no great sins on your conscience." This embarra.s.sed her greatly, and she replied: "No, but I want to ask your advice on a subject that is so--so--so painful that I dare not mention it casually."

He at once laid aside his jovial manner and a.s.sumed his priestly att.i.tude. "Well, my child, I will listen to you in the confessional; come along."

But she held back, undecided, restrained by a kind of scruple at speaking of these matters, of which she was half ashamed, in the seclusion of an empty church.

"Or else, no--Monsieur le Cure--I might--I might--if you wish, tell you now what brings me here. Let us go and sit over there, in your little arbor."

They walked toward it, and Jeanne tried to think how she could begin.

They sat down in the arbor, and then, as if she were confessing herself, she said: "Father----" then hesitated, and repeated: "Father----" and was silent from emotion.

He waited, his hands crossed over his paunch. Seeing her embarra.s.sment, he sought to encourage her: "Why, my daughter, one would suppose you were afraid; come, take courage."

She plucked up courage, like a coward who plunges headlong into danger. "Father, I should like to have another child." He did not reply, as he did not understand her. Then she explained, timid and unable to express herself clearly:

"I am all alone in life now; my father and my husband do not get along together; my mother is dead; and--and----" she added with a shudder, "the other day I nearly lost my son! What would have become of me then?"

She was silent. The priest, bewildered, was gazing at her. "Come, get to the point of your subject."

"I want to have another child," she said. Then he smiled, accustomed to the coa.r.s.e jokes of the peasants, who were not embarra.s.sed in his presence, and he replied, with a sly motion of his head:

"Well, it seems to me that it depends only on yourself."

She raised her candid eyes to his face, and said, hesitating with confusion: "But--but--you understand that since--since--what you know about--about that maid--my husband and I have lived--have lived quite apart."

Accustomed to the promiscuity and undignified relations of the peasants, he was astonished at the revelation. All at once he thought he guessed at the young woman's real desire, and looking at her out of the corner of his eye, with a heart full of benevolence and of sympathy for her distress, he said: "Oh, I understand perfectly. I know that your widowhood must be irksome to you. You are young and in good health. It is natural, quite natural."