“But your poor husband is really very good-natured,” cried Louisa de Wimphen, when the two women were alone together. “He loves you.”
“Oh! not another syllable after that last word. The name I bear makes me shudder—”
“Yes, but Victor obeys you implicitly,” said Louisa.
“His obedience is founded in part upon the great esteem which I have inspired in him. As far as outward things go, I am a model wife. I make his house pleasant to him; I shut my eyes to his intrigues; I touch not a penny of his fortune. He is free to squander the interest exactly as he pleases; I only stipulate that he shall not touch the principal. At this price I have peace. He neither explains nor attempts to explain my life. But though my husband is guided by me, that does not say that I have nothing to fear from his character. I am a bear leader who daily trembles lest the muzzle should give way at last. If Victor once took it into his head that I had forfeited my right to his esteem, what would happen next I dare not think; for he is violent, full of personal pride, and vain above all things. While his wits are not keen enough to enable him to behave discreetly at a delicate crisis when his lowest passions are involved, his character is weak, and he would very likely kill me provisionally even if he died of remorse next day. But there is no fear of that fatal good fortune.”
A brief pause followed. Both women were thinking of the real cause of this state of affairs. Julie gave Louisa a glance which revealed her thoughts.
“I have been cruelly obeyed,” she cried. “Yet I never forbade him to write to me. Oh! he has forgotten me, and he is right. If his life had been spoiled, it would have been too tragical; one life is enough, is it not? Would you believe it, dear; I read English newspapers simply to see his name in print. But he has not yet taken his seat in the House of Lords.”
“So you know English.”
“Did I not tell you?—Yes, I learned.”
“Poor little one!” cried Louisa, grasping Julie’s hand in hers. “How can you still live?”
“That is the secret,” said the Marquise, with an involuntary gesture almost childlike in its simplicity. “Listen, I take laudanum. That duchess in London suggested the idea; you know the story, Maturin made use of it in one of his novels. My drops are very weak, but I sleep; I am only awake for seven hours in the day, and those hours I spend with my child.”
Louisa gazed into the fire. The full extent of her friend’s misery was opening out before her for the first time, and she dared not look into her face.
“Keep my secret, Louisa,” said Julie, after a moment’s silence.
Just as she spoke the footman brought in a letter for the Marquise.
“Ah!” she cried, and her face grew white.
“I need not ask from whom it comes,” said Mme. de Wimphen, but the Marquise was reading the letter, and heeded nothing else.
Mme. de Wimphen, watching her friend, saw strong feeling wrought to the highest pitch, ecstasy of the most dangerous kind painted on Julie’s face in swift changing white and red. At length Julie flung the sheet into the fire.
“It burns like fire,” she said. “Oh! my heart beats till I cannot breathe.”
She rose to her feet and walked up and down. Her eyes were blazing.
“He did not leave Paris!” she cried.
Mme. de Wimphen did not dare to interrupt the words that followed, jerked-out sentences, measured by dreadful pauses in between. After every break the deep notes of her voice sank lower and lower. There was something awful about the last words.
“He has seen me, constantly, and I have not known it.—A look, taken by stealth, every day, helps him to live.—Louisa, you do not know!—He is dying.—He wants to say goodbye to me. He knows that my husband has gone away for several days. He will be here in a moment. Oh! I shall die: I am lost.—Listen, Louisa, stay with me!—I am afraid!”
“But my husband knows that I have been dining with you; he is sure to come for me,” said Mme. de Wimphen.
“Well, then, before you go I will send him away. I will play the executioner for us both. Oh me! he will think that I do not love him any more—And that letter of his! Dear, I can see those words in letters of fire.”
A carriage rolled in under the archway.
“Ah!” cried the Marquise, with something like joy in her voice, “he is coming openly. He makes no mystery of it.”
“Lord Grenville,” announced the servant.
The Marquise stood up rigid and motionless; but at the sight of Arthur’s white face, so thin and haggard, how was it possible to keep up the show of severity? Lord Grenville saw that Julie was not alone, but he controlled his fierce annoyance, and looked cool and unperturbed. Yet for the two women who knew his secret, his face, his tones, the look in his eyes had something of the power attributed to the torpedo. Their faculties were benumbed by the sharp shock of contact with his horrible pain. The sound of his voice set Julie’s heart beating so cruelly that she could not trust herself to speak; she was afraid that he would see the full extent of his power over her. Lord Grenville did not dare to look at Julie, and Mme. de Wimphen was left to sustain a conversation to which no one listened. Julie glanced at her friend with touching gratefulness in
