knowing life, he proposed going right forward, always right forward. Then he thought of Jeanne, and with bitterness asked himself of what assistance he could be to her when he left the house for good. Necessity was driving him out, whilst the dead woman’s wish seemed to keep him here ‘midst offence and ignominy. Then he understood that it could not be. Madame de Rionne had commanded him to walk with head erect, and ever dignified. Above all, he must get away, and after that he would seek means to accomplish his task. Then he uprose. His trunk was open, showing his clothes and linen that he had not yet had time to put in the cupboard. The table was covered with books and papers, and on a corner of the mantelpiece lay a purse containing a little money.
He disarranged nothing — took nothing with him. The words of the insolent servants still rang in his ears, and all the things now seemed not to belong to him. He would have looked on himself as a thief if he had taken away the smallest object.
He went out quite quietly, taking nothing but the clothes he stood up in, leaving the key in the lock of the door.
As he crossed the garden he perceived little Jeanne playing on the path, and was unable to resist the temptation of embracing her before leaving.
The child was frightened, and drew back. Then he asked her if she remembered him. She looked at him without answering. That strange-looking being smiling at her astonished her exceedingly, and no doubt she was trying to call him to mind. Then, as it seemed to worry her, she showed signs of getting up and running away as quickly as possible. Daniel held her gently back.
“As you do not recognise me,” said he, “take a good look at me. Believe me, I love you very much, and it would make me very happy if you could love me ever so little. I wish to be your friend.”
Jeanne could not understand much of this serious speech, but the tenderness of his voice reassured her. She began to laugh happily.
“You must always recognise me now,” added Daniel, laughing also. “I am about to go away, but I shall come back. I shall have all sorts of beautiful things to tell you about if you are good. Will you kiss me, as you kissed your mother?”
He bent down; but the little one, when she heard her mother spoken of, began to cry. She pushed Daniel away with childish anger, and called, “Mamma! mamma!” as loud as her tears would let her. The poor young man stood petrified, but as a servant came out of the house he moved away, deeply wounded at thus leaving the child to whose happiness he was about to devote his whole life.
He found himself in the street stripped of everything, with a heavy task before him to accomplish. His affection and devotion alone sustained him. It was four o’clock in the afternoon.
CHAPTER IV
As the gates of the mansion closed behind Daniel they made a dull, grinding noise. He looked about him without seeing anything, and then began to walk with bowed head, musing, and not knowing whither his steps would lead him. The crying of Jeanne and the noise of the closing gates still echoed in his ears. He kept on saying to himself that the child neither recognised nor loved him, and that the gates groaned in a most extraordinary way as he left.
So far grief had filled his whole being; reason had fled. Now reason was returning, was speaking, and he could judge clearly of matters, his position appeared to him in its true light at last A painful astonishment seized him at the reality. He put himself boldly face to face with his task. He saw himself on one side, mean and wretched, on the other with the delicate mission he had to carry out, and he trembled.
His mission was this: He had the charge of a soul in his hands, he had to fight against the world and conquer it he had to watch over a woman’s heart and secure her happiness. To do that, he would go everywhere his protégée went; he would keep near her constantly that he might defend her against others and against herself.
He must therefore rise to her level and even put himself above her level. He would live in the same house as she did, or at least would be admitted as a guest in the house she frequented. He would be a man of the world and thus would he be able to fight the world advantageously for her.
Then he thought of himself and judged himself. He was ugly, timid, awkward, poor. He was now in the streets, without relations and without friends; he did not even know where he should go to eat and sleep that night. The servants were right to treat him as a beggar, for when hunger drove him he might perhaps have to make up his mind and beg for alms. He saw himself tramping along and laughed at the pitiable figure he would cut, so ridiculous did he seem to himself.
And this was he, this vagabond, this child of misery and sorrow, he who was to be the protector of this little girl, clothed in silk, living in luxury and elegance. He told himself he must be dreaming, that he had lost his head, that Madame de Rionne never could have entrusted her child to a poor devil like himself, and that, in any case, he would not attempt this absurd task.
And, thinking these things, he all the time ardently sought means to keep the vow he had made to the dying woman. Then his ideas took a new direction. Devotion and affection spoke louder in him than reason; he lost sight of himself and became once more a visionary. He regretted having left the mansion. Now he had come away, he knew not how to get in again. The noise of those gates had resounded in the depths of his heart, and he felt abashed.
He made a thousand extravagant projects, as children and lovers do. He found out measures to gain his end, but they were measures that could never be realised; fixing on some new idea that surged in his brain, rejecting one impossible plan to immediately form one still more impossible.
But what recurred to his mind again and again was the bitter regret that he had not quietly carried off Jeanne in his arms. In his mind’s eye he saw her once more playing on the gravel path, and persuaded himself that he could easily have stolen her. And, in the fullest simplicity, he constructed a romance out of this abduction. He saw himself flying with the child, pressing her to his bosom, and only stopping to take breath when far from the accursed house whence he had snatched her.
Then his face grew radiant How sweet and easy became his sacrifice! He saw himself living with Jeanne, he working and she entirely dependent on him; he calling her his daughter and she calling him father. In the poverty, in the obscurity of that life he pictured himself bestowing on her every virtue, making her upright and self-respecting. And he seemed to near the passionate thanks of his good saint Suddenly Daniel paused, and a terrible idea occurred to him: his mission was an outrageous one. Was it fit that a youth of his age should watch over a young girl?
Truly, the passersby would have laughed if they had been able to know what was passing through his simple but kindly mind at that moment. The terrors of his school days were taking hold of him once more. What! must he always be a pariah? There he was at the threshold of life, burdened with an extraordinary task, which would add still more to his gawkiness.
But this was a wicked thought, a quick insight into life as it really was, which could not long prevail with him. Little by little the expression of his face softened; his thoughts grew more composed; he became again the ignorant child he was before. He saw Madame de Rionne smiling, he heard her speaking, and forgetting every one else, forgetting himself, he had nothing left but an ardent desire to be good and do good.
This flood of contradictory ideas which had rushed through his mind, this fierce strife had wearied his brain, and he could not obtain a clear grasp of things. So he rested on the firm conviction that he should act according to the true dictates of his heart, and that his work could not fail to be good, and
