VII
Laurent was not so contemptible as his words implied; he did not really believe a syllable of all the atrocious things he said to Thérèse during that horrible night. He believed them at the moment, or, rather, he spoke without heeding what he said. He remembered nothing of it after sleeping upon it, and if he had been reminded of it, would have denied every word.
But one fact was undeniably true, that he was weary, for the moment, of dignified love, and craved, with his whole heart, the degrading excitements of the past. It was his punishment for following the evil path he had chosen early in life,—a very harsh punishment, no doubt, of which we can readily imagine that he complained bitterly, since he had not sinned with premeditation, but had plunged laughingly into an abyss from which he supposed that he could easily escape when he chose. But love is regulated by a code which seems to rest, like all social codes, upon that terrible formula: No one is supposed to be ignorant of the law! So much the worse for those who are ignorant of it! Let the child go within reach of the claws of the panther, thinking to pat it: the panther will make no allowance for such ignorance; it will devour the child because it is not in its nature to spare him. And so with poison, with the lightning and with vice, blind agents of the fatal law which man must study, or take the consequences.
On the morrow of that explosion, naught remained in Laurent’s memory save a vague idea that he had had a decisive explanation with Thérèse, and that she had seemed resigned.
“Perhaps everything is for the best,” he thought, finding her as calm as when he had parted from her.
And yet he was terrified by her pallor.
“That is nothing,” she said, tranquilly; “this cold tires me a good deal, but it is nothing more than a cold. It will have to run its course.”
“Well, Thérèse,” he said, “what is the present state of our relations? Have you reflected? It is for you to decide. Are we to part in anger, or remain on the footing of friendship as formerly?”
“I am not angry,” she replied; “let us remain friends. Remain here, if you please. I propose to finish my work and return to France in about a fortnight.”
“But should I not go and live in some other house for the next fortnight? aren’t you afraid that people will talk?”
“Do whatever you think best. We have our own apartments here, entirely independent of each other; we use nothing but the salon in common; I have no use for it, and I give it up to you.”
“No: on the other hand, I beg you to keep it. You will not hear me go out and come in; I will never put my foot inside it if you forbid me.”
“I forbid you nothing,” replied Thérèse, “unless it be to think for a single instant that your mistress can forgive you. As for your friend, she is superior to a certain order of disappointment. She hopes that she can still be useful to you, and you will always find her when you need any proof of friendship.”
She offered him her hand, and went away to her work. Laurent did not understand her. Such perfect self-control was something which he could not comprehend, unfamiliar as he was with passive courage and silent resolution. He believed that she expected to resume her influence over him, and that she proposed to bring him back to love through friendship. He promised to yield to no attack of weakness, and, in order to be more certain of himself, he resolved to call some one to witness the fact of the rupture. He went to Palmer, confided to him the wretched story of his love, and added:
“If you love Thérèse, as I think you do, my dear friend, make Thérèse love you. I cannot be jealous of you, far from it. As I have made her unhappy enough, and as I am convinced that you will be exceedingly kind to her, you will relieve me of a subject of remorse which I am most anxious not to retain.”
Laurent was surprised that Palmer made no reply.
“Do I offend you by speaking as I do?” he said. “Such is not my purpose. I entertain friendship and esteem for you, yes, and respect, if you choose. If you blame my conduct in this matter, tell me so; that will be preferable to this air of indifference or disdain.”
“I am indifferent neither to Thérèse’s sorrows nor to yours,” replied Palmer. “But I spare you advice or reproaches which come too late. I believed that you were made for each other; I am persuaded, now, that the greatest, yes, the only happiness that you can confer upon each other is to part. As to my personal feelings for Thérèse, I do not admit your right to question me, and as for those sentiments which, in your judgment, I might succeed in arousing in her, you no longer have the right, after what you have said, to express such a supposition in my presence, much less in hers.”
“That is true,” rejoined Laurent, nonchalantly, “and I understand very well what it means. I see that I shall be in the way here now, and I think that I shall do as well to leave Genoa, in order not to embarrass any one.”
He did, in fact, carry out his threat, after a very cold farewell to Thérèse, and went straight to Florence, with the intention of plunging into society or work, according to his caprice. It was exceedingly pleasant to him to say to himself:
“I will do whatever comes into my head, and there will be no one to suffer and be anxious about me. It is the worst of tortures, when a man is no more evilly disposed than I am, to have a victim constantly before one’s eyes. Come, I am free at last, and the evil that I may do will fall on myself alone!”
Doubtless, Thérèse was wrong not to let him see the depth of the wound he had inflicted on her. She was too brave and too proud. Since she had undertaken the cure of a desperately diseased nature, she should not have recoiled from heroic remedies and painful operations. She should have made that frenzied heart bleed freely, have overwhelmed him with reproaches, and repaid insult with insult and stab with stab. If he had seen the suffering he had caused, perhaps Laurent would have done justice to himself. Perhaps shame and repentance would have saved his soul from the crime of murdering love in cold blood.
But, after three months of fruitless efforts, Thérèse was disheartened. Did she owe such absolute devotion to a man whom she had never desired to enslave, who had forced himself upon her despite her grief and her melancholy forebodings, who had clung to her steps like an abandoned child, and had cried to her: “Take me under your wing, protect me, or I shall die here by the roadside!”
And now that child cursed her for yielding to his outcries and his tears. He accused her of having taken advantage of his weakness to deprive him of the joys of liberty. He turned his back upon her, drawing a long breath, and exclaiming: “At last, at last!”
“Since he is incurable,” she thought, “what is the use of making him suffer? Have I not proved that I could do nothing? Has he not told me, and, alas! almost proved it to me, that I was stifling his genius by seeking to cure his fever? When I thought that I had succeeded in disgusting him with dissipation, did I not discover that he was more greedy of it than ever? When I said to him: ‘Go back into the world,’ he dreaded my jealousy, and plunged into mysterious and degrading debauchery; he returned home drunk, with torn clothes, and blood on his face!”
On the day of Laurent’s departure, Palmer asked Thérèse:
“Well, my friend, what do you propose to do? Shall I go after him?”
“No, certainly not!” she replied.
“Perhaps I could bring him back.”
“I should be in despair if you did.”
“Then you no longer love him?”
“No, not in the least.”
There was a pause, after which Palmer continued in a thoughtful tone:
“Thérèse, I have some very important news for you. I hesitate, because I fear to cause you additional emotion, and you are hardly in condition——”
“I beg your pardon, my friend. I am horribly depressed, but I am absolutely calm, and prepared for anything.”
“Very well, Thérèse; in that case, I will tell you that you are free: the Comte de —— is no more.”
“I know it,” replied Thérèse. “I have known it a week.”
“And you haven’t told Laurent?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because some sort of reaction would have taken place in him instantly. You know how anything unexpected upsets and excites him. One of two things would have happened: either he would have imagined that my purpose in informing him of the change in my position was to induce him to marry me, and the horror of being bound to me would have intensified his aversion, or he would have turned suddenly, of his own motion, to the idea of marriage, in one of those paroxysms of devotion which sometimes seize him and which last—just a quarter of an hour, to be succeeded by profound despair or frantic wrath. The unfortunate creature is guilty enough toward me; it was not necessary to offer fresh bait to his caprice, and an additional motive for him to perjure himself.”
“Then you no longer esteem him?”
“I do not say that, my dear Palmer. I pity him, and do not accuse him. Perhaps some other woman will make him happy and good. I have been unable to do either. It is probably as much my fault as his. However that may be, it is proved to my satisfaction that we never should have loved each other, and that we should not make any further effort to do so.”
“And now, Thérèse, will you not think of taking advantage of the liberty you have recovered?”
“What advantage can I take of it?”
“You can marry again, and become acquainted with the joys of a happy home.”
“My dear Dick, I have loved twice in my life, and you see where I am now. It is not in my destiny to be happy. It is too late to seek what has thus far eluded me. I am thirty years old.”
“It is just because you are thirty years old that you cannot do without love. You have undergone the enthusiasm of passion, and that is just the age at which women cannot escape it. It is because you have suffered, because you have been inadequately loved, that the inextinguishable thirst for happiness is bound to awake in you, and, it may be, to lead you from disappointment to disappointment, into deeper abysses than that from which you are now emerging.”
“I trust not.”
“Yes, of course, you trust not; but you are mistaken, Thérèse; everything is to be feared from your time of life, your overstrained sensitiveness and the deceitful tranquillity due to a moment of weariness and prostration. Love will seek you out, do not doubt it, and you will be pursued and beset the moment that you have recovered your liberty. Formerly, your isolation held in abeyance the hopes of those who surrounded you; but now that Laurent has lowered you in their esteem, all those who claimed to be your friends will seek to be your lovers. You will inspire violent passions, and some there will be sufficiently clever to persuade you. In a word——”
“In a word, Palmer, you consider me lost because I am unhappy! That is very cruel of you, and you make me feel very keenly how debased I am!”
Thérèse put her hands over her face, and wept bitterly.
Palmer let her weep on; seeing that tears would be beneficial to her, he had purposely provoked that outburst. When he saw that she was calmer, he knelt before her.
“Thérèse,” he said, “I have caused you bitter pain, but you must give me credit for kindly intentions. I love you, Thérèse, I have always loved you, not with a blind passion, but with all the faith and all the devotion of which I am capable. I can see more plainly than ever that in your case a noble life has been ruined and shattered by the fault of others. You are, in truth, debased in the eyes of the world, but not in mine. On the contrary, your love for Laurent has proved to me that you are a woman, and I love you better so than armed at all points against every human frailty, as I once believed you to be. Listen to me, Thérèse. I am a philosopher; that is to say, I consult common-sense and tolerant ideas rather than the prejudices of society and the romantic subtleties of sentiment. Though you were to plunge into the most deplorable disorders, I should not cease to love you and esteem you, because you are one of those women who cannot be led astray except by the heart. But why should you fall into such a plight? It is perfectly clear to my mind, that if you should meet to-day a devoted, tranquil, and faithful heart, exempt from those mental maladies which sometimes make great artists and often bad husbands—a father, a brother, a friend, in a word, a husband, you would be forever secure against danger and misfortune in the future. Well, Thérèse, I venture to say that I am such a man. There is nothing brilliant about me to dazzle you, but I have a stout heart to love you. My confidence in you is absolute. As soon as you are happy, you will be grateful, and once grateful, you will be loyal and rehabilitated forever. Say yes, Thérèse; consent to marry me and consent at once, without alarm, without scruples, without false delicacy, without distrust of yourself. I give you my life, and ask nothing of you except to believe in me. I feel that I am strong enough not to suffer from the tears which another’s ingratitude may still cause you to shed. I shall never reproach you with the past, and I undertake to make the future so pleasant and so secure that no storm will ever tear you from my bosom.”
Palmer talked for a long while in this strain, with a heartfelt earnestness for which Thérèse was unprepared. She tried to repel his confidence; but this resistance was, in Palmer’s eyes, a last remnant of mental disease which she must stamp out herself. She felt that Palmer spoke the truth, but she felt also that he proposed to assume a terrible task.
“No,” she said, “I am not afraid of myself. I do not love Laurent, and I can never love him again; but what about society, your mother, your country, your social standing, the honor of your name? I am debased, as you have said; I am conscious of it. Ah! Palmer, do not urge me so! I am too dismayed by the thought of what you will have to defy for my sake!”
On the next day, and every day thereafter, Palmer pressed his suit vigorously. He gave Thérèse no time to breathe. He was alone with her from morning till night, and redoubled the force of his will to persuade her. Palmer was a man of heart and of impulse; we shall see later whether Thérèse was justified in hesitating. What disturbed her was the precipitation with which Palmer acted, and sought to force her to act by pledging herself to him by a promise.
“You are afraid of my reflections,” she said; “therefore you have not so much confidence in me as you boast of having.”
“I believe in your word,” he replied. “Do I not prove that by asking you for it? But I am not obliged to believe that you love me, for you give me no answer on that point, and you are right. You do not know as yet what name to give to your friendly feeling. For my own part, I know that what I feel is love, and I am not one of those who hesitate to read their own hearts. Love with me is very logical. It fervently craves its object. Therefore it seeks to avoid the ill-fortune to which you may expose it by indulging in reflections or reveries, wherein, mentally diseased as you are, you may not distinguish your real interests.”
Thérèse felt almost hurt when Palmer spoke of her interests. He seemed to her altogether too self-sacrificing, and she could not bear to have him think her capable of accepting so much from him without seeking to reciprocate. She suddenly felt ashamed of herself in that contest of generosity in which Palmer placed himself absolutely at her discretion, demanding only that she should accept his name, his fortune, his protection, and the affection of his whole life. He gave everything, and, as his only recompense, begged her to think of herself.
Thereupon, hope returned to Thérèse’s heart. This man, whom she had always considered a practical, matter-of-fact mortal, and who still artlessly affected that character, revealed himself to her in so utterly unexpected a light, that her mind was vividly impressed, and as it were, revivified, in the midst of its death-agony. It was like a ray of sunlight bursting in upon darkness which she thought was destined to be everlasting. At the very moment when, rendered unjust by her despair, she was on the point of cursing love, he forced her to believe in love, and to look upon her misfortune as an accident for which Heaven was prepared to compensate her. Palmer, who was a handsome man of a cold and regular type of beauty, became more and more transfigured every moment in the astonished, uncertain, melting eyes of the woman he loved. His shyness, which imparted to his first advances a touch of roughness, gave place to effusive warmth, and, although he expressed himself less poetically than Laurent, he was none the less persuasive on that account.
Thérèse discovered genuine enthusiasm beneath that somewhat rough shell of obstinacy, and she could not refrain from smiling with emotion when she saw the vehemence with which he coolly pursued his project of saving her. She felt deeply touched, and allowed him to extort the promise he demanded.
Suddenly she received a letter in a handwriting that she did not recognize, it was so changed. Indeed, she had difficulty in deciphering the signature. She succeeded, however, with Palmer’s help, in reading these words:
“I have played and lost; I had a mistress, she deceived me, and I killed her. I have taken poison. I am dying. Adieu, Thérèse.
“LAURENT.”
“Let us go!” said Palmer.
“Ah! my friend, I do love you!” cried Thérèse, throwing her arms about his neck. “I realize now how well you deserve to be loved.”
They started instantly. In one night they reached Livorno by water, and were at Florence that evening. They found Laurent at an inn, not dying, but suffering from an attack of brain fever of such violence that four men could hardly hold him. When he saw Thérèse, he recognized her and clung to her, crying that they intended to bury him alive. He held her so tightly that she fell to the floor, suffocated. Palmer had to carry her from the room in a swoon; but she came to herself in a moment; and, with a courage and perseverance bordering on the marvellous, she passed twenty days and nights at the bedside of that man whom she no longer loved. He recognized her only to heap the grossest insults upon her, and, as soon as she left him for an instant, he recalled her, saying that without her he should die.
Luckily, he had not killed any woman, nor taken any poison, nor, in all probability, lost his money at play, nor done anything of what he had written to Thérèse under the influence of delirium and disease. He never mentioned that letter, which she dared not mention to him; he was terrified enough by the derangement of his mind when he became conscious that it had been deranged. He had many other bad dreams while his fever lasted. Sometimes he imagined that Thérèse was administering poison to him, sometimes that Palmer was putting fetters on him. The most frequent and most agonizing of his hallucinations was one in which he saw Thérèse take a long gold pin from her hair and force it slowly into his skull. She had such a pin with which she kept her hair in place in the Italian fashion. She ceased to wear it, but he still saw and felt it.
As her presence seemed, as a general rule, to excite him, Thérèse usually stationed herself behind his bed, with the curtain between them; but, as soon as there was occasion to give him any medicine, he would lose his temper, and declare that he would take nothing from any hand but Thérèse’s.
“She alone has the right to kill me,” he would say; “I have injured her so deeply! She hates me, let her take her revenge! Don’t I see her every moment, at the foot of my bed, in her new lover’s arms? Come, Thérèse, come, I say; I am thirsty; pour out the poison for me.”
Thérèse would, thereupon, pour out for him tranquillity and slumber. After several days of continued frantic excitement, which the doctors thought that he could not endure, and which they took note of as an abnormal fact, Laurent suddenly became calm and lay inert, prostrated, in a sort of stupor, but saved.
He was so weak that they had to feed him, without his knowledge, and in such infinitesimal quantities in order to relieve his stomach of all labor of digestion, that Thérèse felt that she ought not to leave him for an instant. Palmer tried to induce her to take some rest by giving her his word of honor to take her place by the invalid’s side; but she refused, feeling that no human power was secure against the surprise of sleep, and that, since by a sort of miracle she was always on the alert when the time came to put the spoon to the patient’s lips, and was never overcome by fatigue, God had entrusted to her, and to no other, the duty of saving that fragile existence.
And so it was, in truth, and she saved him.
If medical science, however enlightened it may be, proves inadequate in desperate cases, it is very often because it is impossible to carry out the treatment with absolute exactness. No one knows what disturbance a moment of craving or a moment of surfeit may cause in a life that is trembling in the balance; and the miracle lacking to save the dying man is often nothing more than placidity, persistence, and punctuality on the part of his nurses.
At last, Laurent awoke one morning as if from a lethargic sleep, seemed surprised to see Thérèse at his right and Palmer at his left, offered each of them a hand, and asked them where he was and how he came there.
They deceived him a long while as to the length and severity of his illness, for he was deeply distressed when he saw how weak and emaciated he was. The first time that he looked in the glass he was frightened by his own image. In the early days of his convalescence he asked for Thérèse. He was told that she was asleep. He was greatly surprised.
“So she has become a genuine Italian woman, has she,” he said, “that she sleeps in the day-time?”
Thérèse slept twenty-four hours without a break. Nature reasserted itself as soon as anxiety vanished.
Little by little, Laurent learned how devoted she had been to him, and he detected on her face the traces of excessive fatigue following on the heels of excessive grief. As he was still too weak to give his mind to anything, Thérèse installed herself by his side, sometimes reading to him, sometimes playing cards with him to amuse him, sometimes taking him to drive. Palmer was always with them.
Laurent’s strength returned with a rapidity as extraordinary as his constitution. His brain was not always perfectly clear, however. One day, he said angrily to Thérèse, when he happened to be alone with her:
“By the way, when does the excellent Palmer propose to do us the honor of going away?”
Thérèse saw that there was a gap in his memory, and did not reply. Whereupon he made an effort to control himself, and added:
“You consider me ungrateful, my love, to speak thus of a man who has been almost as devoted to me as you yourself have; but I am not vain enough or simple enough not to understand that his reason for shutting himself up for a month in the room of a very disagreeable invalid was to have an excuse for not leaving you. Come, Thérèse, will you swear that he did it solely on my account?”
Thérèse was offended by that point-blank question, and by his use of the second person singular, which she had believed to be discarded forever between them. She shook her head, and tried to change the subject. Laurent yielded with ill grace; but he returned to it the next day; and as Thérèse, seeing that he was strong enough to do without her, was preparing to go away, he said, with unfeigned surprise:
“Why, where are we going, Thérèse? Aren’t we comfortable here?”
She was obliged to explain, for he insisted.
“My child,” said Thérèse, “you are to remain here; the doctors say that you need another week or two of perfect quiet before you can travel at all without danger of a relapse. I am going back to France, as I have finished my work at Genoa, and I do not intend, at present, to visit other parts of Italy.”
“Very good, Thérèse, you are free; but if you choose to return to France, I am at liberty to make the same choice. Can’t you wait a week for me? I am sure that I shall need no more than that to be in condition to travel.”
He was so sincere in his forgetfulness of the wrong he had done her, and he was so like a child at that moment, that Thérèse had to force back the tears that came to her eyes at the memory of that species of adoption, formerly so sweet, which she was forced to resign.
She began involuntarily to use the familiar form of address, and said to him, with the utmost gentleness and delicacy, that they must part for some time.
“Why part, in Heaven’s name?” cried Laurent; “do we no longer love each other?”
“That would be impossible,” she replied; “we shall always be friends; but we have mutually caused each other a great deal of suffering, and your health could not endure any more of it. We will wait until time enough has elapsed for everything to be forgotten.”
“But I have forgotten!” cried Laurent, with an earnestness that was touching because it was so absolutely ingenuous. “I remember none of the wrong you did me! You were always an angel to me, and, being an angel, you cannot harbor resentment. You must forgive me for everything, and take me away with you, Thérèse! If you leave me here, I shall die of ennui!”
And as Thérèse displayed a firmness that he did not expect, he lost his temper and told her that she did very wrong to feign a severity to which her whole conduct gave the lie.
“I understand perfectly well what you want,” he said. “You demand that I repent, and atone for my wrong-doing. Well, don’t you see that I abhor the thought of it, and have I not expiated it sufficiently by going mad for eight or ten days? You desire tears and oaths as formerly? What is the use? you would not believe in them again. My future conduct is what is to be judged, and you see that I am not afraid of the future, since I cling to you. You see, my dear Thérèse, you are a child, too, and you know I often called you one when I saw you pretending to sulk. Do you think you can persuade me that you no longer love me, when you have just passed a whole month shut up here, and for twenty days and nights of that month did not go to bed and hardly left my room? Can’t I see, from the dark rings about your lovely eyes, that you would have died at the task if it had been necessary? A woman doesn’t do such things as that for a man she no longer loves!”
Thérèse dared not utter the fatal words. She hoped that Palmer would come and interrupt the tête-à-tête, and that she could avoid a scene that might result seriously for the convalescent. But it was impossible; he placed himself in front of the door to prevent her from going out, dropped at her feet, and grovelled there in despair.
“Great God!” she exclaimed, “is it possible that you think me cruel enough, capricious enough, to refuse to say a word that I could say to you? But I cannot say that one because it would not be the truth. Love is at an end between us.”
Laurent rose in a passion. He could not understand that perhaps he had killed that love in which he had pretended not to believe.
“Is it Palmer?” he cried, smashing a tea-pot, from which he had mechanically poured himself a draught; “it is he, is it? Tell me, I insist upon it, I insist upon the truth! It will kill me, I know, but I don’t choose to be deceived!”
“Deceived!” echoed Thérèse, taking his hands to prevent him from tearing them with his nails; “deceived! what sort of a word is that for you to use? Do I belong to you, pray? have we not been strangers to each other since the first night you passed away from home at Genoa, after telling me that I was your torment and your executioner? wasn’t that four months ago and more? and do you think that length of time, without an indication of change on your part, was not enough to make me mistress of myself once more?”
And as she saw that Laurent, instead of being exasperated by her frankness, grew calmer, and listened with eager interest, she continued:
“If you do not understand the feeling that brought me to your sick-bed, and that has kept me beside you until to-day, to complete your cure by a mother’s care, it is because you never understood my heart. This heart, Laurent,” she said, putting her hand to her breast, “may be neither so proud nor so ardent as yours; but, as you yourself used often to say, it always remains in the same place. What it has loved it cannot cease to love; but, do not mistake my meaning, it is not love as you understand the word, it is not such love as you once aroused in me and as you are mad enough to expect again. Neither my passions nor my reason belong to you now. I have resumed possession of my body and my will; my confidence and my enthusiastic regard can never be restored to you. I am at liberty to bestow them upon whoever may deserve them, upon Palmer, if I choose, and you have no right to object, you who went to him one morning and said:
“‘Pray go and console Thérèse; you will do me a favor.’”
“That is true! that is true!” cried Laurent, clasping his trembling hands; “I did say that! I had forgotten it, but I remember it now!”
“Do not forget it again,” said Thérèse, who resumed a gentler tone when she saw that he was calmer, “and understand, my poor child, that love is too delicate a flower to rise again when one has trampled it under foot. Think no more of it in connection with me, seek it elsewhere, if this sad experience you have had of it opens your eyes and modifies your character. You will find it on the day that you are worthy of it. As for myself, I could no longer endure your caresses, I should be degraded by them; but my sisterly and motherly affection will remain yours in spite of yourself and in spite of everything. That is something different, it is pity; I do not conceal the fact, but I tell you frankly, so that you may think no more of winning again a love by which you as well as myself would be humiliated. If you wish that this friendship, which seems an insult to you now, should become agreeable to you, you have only to deserve it. Hitherto you have had no opportunity. Now the opportunity is at hand; make the most of it, part with me without weakness or bitterness. Show me the calm, sympathetic face of a man of heart, instead of this face of a child who weeps without knowing why.”
“Let me weep, Thérèse,” said Laurent, kneeling at her feet, “let me wash away my sin with my tears; let me kneel in adoration of this saintly compassion which has survived shattered love in your heart. It does not humiliate me, as you think; I feel that I shall become worthy of it. Do not ask me to be calm, you know well enough that I cannot be; but believe that I may possibly become good. Ah! Thérèse, I know you too late! Why did you not speak to me sooner as you have just spoken? Why did you overwhelm me with your kindness and devotion, sweet Sister of Charity who cannot restore my happiness? But you are right, Thérèse; I deserved what has happened to me, and you have made me understand it at last. The lesson will benefit me, I promise you, and if I am ever able to love another woman, I shall know how to love. So I shall owe everything to you, my sister, past and future alike!”
Laurent was still talking effusively when Palmer entered. Laurent threw himself on his neck, calling him his brother and his savior, and exclaimed, pointing to Thérèse:
“Ah! my friend! you remember what you said to me at the Hôtel Meurice the last time we met in Paris: ‘If you are not sure that you will not make her suffer, blow out your brains to-night rather than return to her’?—I ought to have done it, but I did not! And now, look at her, she is more changed than I am, poor Thérèse! She was thrown down and trampled on, and yet she came and tore me from the clutches of death, when she might well have cursed me and abandoned me!”
Laurent’s penitence was genuine; Palmer was deeply moved by it. As the artist worked himself up, he expressed himself with persuasive eloquence, and when Palmer was alone with Thérèse, he said to her:
“Do not think, my dear, that I suffered on account of your solicitude for him, I understood perfectly! You wished to cure his body and his heart. You have won the victory. Your poor child is saved! Now what do you propose to do?”
“Leave him forever,” she replied, “or, at all events, not see him again for years to come. If he returns to France, I remain in Italy, and if he remains in Italy, I return to France. Have I not told you that was my resolution? It was because my mind was so thoroughly made up that I postponed the moment of parting. I knew that there must inevitably be an outbreak, and I did not wish to leave him while it lasted, if it should prove to be serious.”
“Have you reflected seriously, Thérèse?” said Palmer, thoughtfully. “Are you quite sure of not weakening at the last moment?”
“I am perfectly sure.”
“That man seems to me irresistible in grief. He would extort pity from the bowels of a stone, and yet, Thérèse, if you yield to him, you are lost, and he with you. If you still love him, reflect that you can save him only by leaving him!”
“I know it,” replied Thérèse; “but why do you say that, my friend? Are you ill, too? Have you forgotten that my word is pledged to you?”
Palmer kissed her hand and smiled. Peace re-entered his soul.
On the next day, Laurent came and told them that he intended to go to Switzerland to complete his cure. The climate of Italy did not agree with him: that was the truth. The physicians advised him not to wait until the extremely hot weather.
It was definitely decided that they should part at Florence. Thérèse had no other plans than to go where Laurent did not go; but, when she saw how exhausted he was by the emotion of the preceding day, she had to promise him to pass another week at Florence, in order to prevent him from going away before he regained the necessary strength.
That week was, perhaps, the best in Laurent’s whole life. Generous, trustful, cordial, and sincere, he had entered upon a frame of mind which he had never before known, even during the first week of his union with Thérèse. Affection had penetrated him, invaded him, vanquished him. He would not leave his two friends, but drove with them to the Cascines, at the hours when there was no crowd there, ate with them, took a childish delight in going to dine with them in the country, when Thérèse would take his arm and Palmer’s alternately, tried his strength by fencing a little with the latter, accompanied them to the theatre, and made Dick the great tourist trace the itinerary of his trip to Switzerland. It was a very important question whether he should go by Milan or Genoa. He decided at last on the latter route, intending to go by Pisa and Lucca, thence along the shore, by land or water, according as he should feel stronger or weaker after the first few days of travelling.
The day appointed for his departure arrived. Laurent had made all his preparations with melancholy gaiety. Brimming over with jests concerning his costume, concerning his luggage, concerning the mongrel aspect he would present in a certain waterproof cloak, then a great novelty, which Palmer had compelled him to accept, and concerning the barbarous French of an Italian servant whom Palmer had selected for him, and who was the best fellow in the world; accepting gratefully and humbly all Thérèse’s injunctions and attentions, he had tears in his eyes, while he laughed most heartily.
On the night preceding this last day, he had a slight attack of fever. He jested about it. The carriage in which he was to travel by slow stages, was at the door. It was a cool morning. Thérèse was anxious.
“Go with him as far as Spezzia,” Palmer said to her. “That is where he is to take the boat, if he doesn’t stand the carriage journey well. I will join you there the day after he has left. Some very urgent business will detain me here twenty-four hours.”
Thérèse, surprised by this suggestion, refused to go with Laurent.
“I beg you to do it,” said Palmer, with much earnestness; “it is impossible for me to go with you!”
“Very good, my dear, but it is not necessary for me to go with him.”
“Yes, it is,” he replied; “you must go.”
Thérèse fancied that she understood: that Palmer deemed this final test necessary. She was surprised and disturbed.
“Will you give me your word of honor,” she said, “that you really have important business here?”
“Yes,” he replied, “I give you my word.”
“Very well, then I will remain.”
“No, you must go.”
“I do not understand.”
“I will explain later, my love. I believe in you as in God, as you see; have confidence in me. Go.”
Thérèse hastily made up a small bundle which she tossed into the carriage; then she took her place beside Laurent, calling back to Palmer:
“I have your word of honor to join me in twenty-four hours.”