At a street corner, he heard a cry; someone uttered his name. He quickened his pace, not daring to look back; but someone ran after him, overtook him and grasped his arm; he trembled, the cold perspiration stood on his brow; he raised his eyes and saw his wife and daughter before him.
"Is it really you? I have found you at last!" said Adeline; "oh! I have been looking for you for a long, long while."
"You frightened me," said Edouard, greatly surprised by this meeting.
"But why are you here? Why did you leave the country?"
"Your creditors have turned me out of the house I was living in; it no longer belongs to you. Some time ago the notary warned me that your fortune was impaired; that such property as you possessed was subject to numerous mortgages."
"I know all that, madame; spare me your useless complaints and reproaches."
"I don"t propose to make any complaints or reproaches; and yet--Oh! my dear, how changed you are!"
"I have been sick."
"Why not have written to me? I would have come and nursed you."
"I needed n.o.body."
"And this is the way you treat her whom you have reduced to want! I have lost my mother, and I no longer have a husband! Chance alone is responsible for my meeting you; I have asked for you in all the places where you have lived, but no one has been able to give me any news of you. For a fortnight I have been here; I was losing hope when at last I caught sight of you, dear Edouard; and this is the way you speak to me; and you don"t even kiss your daughter!"
"Do you want me to make a show of myself to the pa.s.sers-by?"
"How can the sight of a father kissing his child be absurd, in the eyes of decent people? But let us go in somewhere, into a cafe."
"I haven"t any time."
"Where do you live now?"
"A long way from here; I was in very straitened circ.u.mstances, and Dufresne took me in to lodge with him."
"You live with Dufresne? A villain who has already been guilty of all sorts of crimes!"
"Hold your tongue, and don"t bore me with your preaching! I do what I choose and I see whom I choose; I give you leave to do the same."
"What a tone, and what manners!" said Adeline to herself, as she examined Edouard; "but no matter, I must make one last attempt.--Monsieur," she said aloud, "if it is want that forces you to remain with that scoundrel who deceives you, come and live with me; let us leave this city, which would recall painful memories to you, and come with me to some lonely place in the country; I have nothing, but I will work, I will work nights if necessary, and I will provide means of subsistence for us. In a poor cottage we may still be happy, if we endure adversity with courage, and Heaven, moved by our resignation, will perhaps take pity on us. You will find the repose which eludes you, and I shall find my husband. In pity"s name, do not refuse me; come, I implore you; leave this town, with its treacherous counselors and dangerous acquaintances, or beware lest you become a criminal."
Edouard was moved; his heart was agitated by pity and remorse, and he looked at his daughter for the first time.
"Well," he said to Adeline, "I will see; if I can arrange my affairs, I will go with you."
"What detains you now?"
"A single thing, but a most important one; I must find out--where are you staying now?"
"At a hotel in Faubourg Saint-Antoine; see, here is my address."
"Give it to me; to-morrow I will go to see you."
"Do you promise?"
"Yes; until to-morrow. Adieu, I leave you."
Edouard hurried away, and Adeline returned to her hotel, pa.s.sing from hope to fear and from fear to hope. She knew her husband, she knew how little she could rely upon his promises, so that she awaited the morrow with anxiety. But on the morrow Dufresne and Lampin returned with money.
The discounter had fallen into the trap; he had thought that he had recognized the banker"s signature. Those men led Edouard away; they abandoned themselves anew to the pleasures of the table and the gambling house. They made Murville drunk; they put his remorse and his scruples to silence; they laughed at his fears; and Adeline, instead of seeing him whom she expected, received in the morning a note containing only these words:
"Do not try to see me again, do not hope that I will go with you to bury myself in a cottage; that sort of thing does not suit me.
Leave Paris without me; this is the last command that you will receive from your husband, who leaves you entirely at liberty to do whatever you please."
Adeline bathed the letter in her tears.
"You have no father now," she said to little Ermance; "poor child, what will your lot be? Let us leave this city, let us follow my husband"s last orders. Let us go back to the honest villagers; at the farm they will not spurn me. I shall not blush to ask them for work. O mother! If you were still alive, I should find comfort in your arms. If only I had followed your advice! Perhaps Edouard then--but it"s too late! At all events, you never knew the full extent of my sorrow."
Adeline sold all that she thought unlikely to be of use to her in the situation which she was about to occupy. No more jewels, no more flowers, no superfluous wardrobe; in a simple dress and a straw hat tied with a modest ribbon, with her daughter on one arm and a small bundle on the other,--thus did Madame Murville set out for Guillot"s farm.
XXVII
ADELINE FINDS A PROTECTOR
The farmer"s family were in despair at Madame Murville"s flight. Since the day that Dufresne had been driven from the village, Adeline, buried in the most profound melancholy, had not left her home; she took no diversion whatever, and the solicitations of the peasants had failed to induce her to emerge from her retirement.
Jacques did not know what to think of his brother"s conduct. He easily guessed that he made his wife unhappy; but he was still far from suspecting the extent of his misbehavior! Edouard"s brother dared not question Adeline, but she read in his eyes his sympathy with her distress, and her grateful heart rewarded the honest laborer with the most sincere friendship. Every two days Jacques went to the village to enquire for Madame Murville"s health. One morning when he rang as usual at the courtyard gate, the old gardener answered the bell, with tears in his eyes.
"What"s the matter, Pere Foret, what has happened to Madame Murville now?" Jacques asked anxiously; "can it be that that scamp of the other day has come again?"
"Ah! my dear monsieur, more than one scamp has come to-day! And they have turned my mistress out of doors!"
"Turned her out! That isn"t possible, ten thousand dead men!"
"It is true, however."
"What were they? brigands, robbers?"
"No, no, monsieur, they were bailiffs, creditors, what do I know? They showed madame some papers, and told her that she wasn"t in her own house any longer. Poor woman! she cried, but she didn"t make any answer; she just did her clothes up in a bundle, took her daughter in her arms, and left."
"Left! She has gone away? Is it possible? The villain! he has reduced her to dest.i.tution!"
"Monsieur Jacques, I tell you there was a lot of them. Look, here"s the placard; this house is for sale now, and they left me here, so that there might be some one to show it to people."
"Do you know where Madame Murville has gone?"
"Bless me! she took the Paris road."
"She has gone to join him."
"Yes, no doubt she has gone to her husband; but look you, between ourselves, they say that he is a regular good-for-nothing; that he raises the devil at Paris; and you must agree, Monsieur Jacques, that when one has a pretty, good, young wife like madame--For, bless my soul, she is virtue and goodness personified! And then a child, which will be its mother"s portrait; well, I say, when a man has all that, and forgets them all the year round, it ain"t right, and it don"t speak well for him."