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CHAPTER XXVI.

AFTER Armand's passionate entreaty a dead silence reigned throughout the room. Adrienne still leaned against the marble table, still looked with cold, proud eyes at the man who had humbled himself before her, as never in all his life he had done before any living woman. For a moment the greatness of her love broke down the barriers of pride; for a moment she pitied the man even more than she blamed the sinner.

"Will you not speak to me?" he pleaded. "I know I was never worthy of your love. I think no man could be that--but will you never forgive?--"

She interrupted him then.

"It is easy to say I forgive," she said; "but how can I forget? What had I ever done that you should have treated me as you did--that my love, and trust, and belief in you should have been wantonly destroyed?"

"Your words are just," he said, rising slowly, and looking, with a new and strange regret at the beautiful, averted face. "I have lost all. I do not complain; I have no right. Only I should like you to | | 280 know that I have not erred as that letter would make you suppose. The girl was not my mistress. You were inveigled into the house by the malice of a woman whom I thought a friend."

"You mean Madame Lissac, of course?"

"Yes," he said, somewhat confusedly. "Zoé Laurent was a protégée of hers. She had asked my influence to get her an engagement in one of the theatres, and the girl seemed grateful; and I went to her house that once. It was a trap to ruin our happiness. We both fell into it. I know my conduct must look inexcusable. Women judge of these things so differently to men. I have never been a good man, that I know--never worthy of you; but you do not understand the world of to-day, nor the ways of men. Their vagaries and follies are but pastimes for lighter moments. No doubt they look worthless and ignoble in your eyes, but all of love I have ever had has been yours; if I had never known it before, your loss would have taught it me!"

All his old persuasive eloquence was at work; the words poured from his lips in rapid, impulsive fashion; but there was a ring of truth in them that went straight to Adrienne's heart and touched it despite the stern teachings of reason.

Yet she dared not listen--dared not trust him again. Some of her weight of sorrow was lightened since he had come to plead for her forgiveness, since he had not wholly forgotten her, and turned for consolation to those lighter joys for which she had | | 281 been forsaken once. But she shut her ears to his pleading. Her voice fell cold as an ice-spray on his excited feelings.

"It is easy to talk," she said; "you used all your eloquence once, and I believed you--to my cost. A faith once shaken is never the same. You have torn mine up by the roots. Nothing will ever transplant it."

"I know," he answered, and turned away with a heavy sigh. Of course she was right. How could he ever have expected that any plea of his could extenuate his conduct or win her forgiveness?

That sigh touched her more than words. A warm flush stole to her cheek--a momentary hesitation trembled in her words.

"If indeed you mean it, or want it, take my forgiveness with you," she said, more softly. "I shall find peace in time, no doubt. I have suffered greatly; but perhaps you never thought of that. Men--as you say--are so different to women."

A great shame and humility came over him as he heard these words; as, looking again at the beautiful face, he saw how all its girlish loveliness and radiance had fled.

"Good-bye," he said slowly; "I will not trouble you again. I have spoilt your life, that I know. If I told you of my own bitter regrets you would not believe me. Doubtless I look vile and base enough in your eyes. But even a bad man can love, and I love you as I have never loved another woman. It | | 282 is too late, of course; I know that I am not worth one of your pure thoughts. Perhaps you will forget me--perhaps time will bring you peace. I have never sacrificed my own wishes or feelings before. Well, I do it now. Never shall I force myself on you again, unless you yourself desire it. But as there is a Heaven above, I will be true to you while life lasts. And now--farewell."

Their eyes met. A passion of regret in the one, a great and troubled sadness in the other. He took her hands and touched them with his lips, and then turned away, with no other word, and left her.

A moment she stood there, listening to the echoes of his footsteps as they died away in the distance. A moment--then the barriers of pride and coldness fell from her heart--the woman's heart that, despite all outrage and all wrongs, still beat and thrilled with the love of old. A sob broke from her lips. She stretched out her arms with a faint, despairing cry.

But he was far beyond hearing now. She threw herself down, and the dusky shadows of the room closed round her, like the shadows of her own life.

"You have sent him away? You would not, then, forgive?" asked Céline de Valtour a few moments later, as she sought her in the solitude of her own room.

"I have forgiven him," Adrienne answered, lifting up her colourless face. "But do you think I would ask him to stay?"

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"And he himself expressed no such wish?"

"I hardly know what he said. He seemed in earnest for once. He told me he would never force himself upon me unless I wished it."

"And you?"

"I said nothing. What could I say? His presence agitates me terribly. I am sorry for him, in a way, but I cannot forget. The thought of his conduct turns me sick with shame when I think of it."

"Still an open rupture is a pity," said Mdlle. de Valtour thoughtfully. "And in the future--did you tell him about that?"

"No; he will hear of it soon enough," answered Adrienne coldly. "Why should I have told him?"

Mdlle. de Valtour was silent. She had no thought her young sister would be so cold and proud.

"I suppose you know best what is for your happiness," she said at last. "Only, dear, believe me there will never come a time when women will not have to make excuses for men. The world and life and nature and everything else are against us. We must be humble, unexacting, dog-like--that is our province. Griselda's patience should be our model, even without her other virtues."

"It might be easy to have patience if one had no love," murmured Adrienne. "But a woman has little strength left her then."

"You care for Armand still?" asked Céline eagerly.

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"Care? I care for him enough to make forgiveness easy and forgetfulness impossible. To see how blank and desolate his loss makes my life, and yet not enough to call him back and say, 'Only love me once again, and the past shall die for both of us.' I suppose my own self-respect is dearer to me than his love; or am I indeed so changed?"

"You are changed--certainly," said Céline de Valtour, looking at her very sadly. "But after all, my love, no one passes through life without receiving some such shocks or disappointments. The time of illusions is very short, brief as a woman's youth, or her first love-dream. It is sad that it should be so, but it is a truth stubborn as any fact, undeniable as any of nature's laws. We come into this world without any will of our own; once in it we must bear with its ways and suffer its buffets as philosophically as we can. It seems strange, does it not?--yes, and hard too. But perhaps we shall find our recompense in time to come--in that great hereafter for which our souls so blindly yearn. God knows we need it, even though our deserts are few. Why, child, you are weeping. Nay, that must not be."

"Do not trouble," said Adrienne, raising her streaming eyes to the kind and gentle face. "Tears do me good. I have been cold and hard so long. Yes--you are right, our deserts are few. Perhaps I have no right to be so bitter. I am not so good or perfect myself that I can afford to sit in judgment on | | 285 the faults of others. And, after all, a woman's love is nothing if it cannot bear with a man's errors. One need not live very long to learn that."