back to me.”
Sauvresy was really alarmed; he saw clearly how real and earnest Jenny’s menaces were. There are persйcutions against which the law is powerless. But he dissimulated his alarm under the blandest air he could assume.
“Hear me, my child,” said he. “If I give you my word of honor to tell you the truth, you’ll believe me, won’t you?”
She hesitated a moment, and said:
“Yes, you are honorable; I will believe you.”
“Then, I swear to you that Tremorel hopes to marry a young girl who is immensely rich, whose dowry will secure his future.”
“He tells you so; he wants you to believe it.”
“Why should he? Since he came to Valfeuillu, he could have had no other affair than this with you. He lives in my house, as if he were my brother, between my wife and myself, and I could tell you how he spends his time every hour of every day as well as what I do myself.”
Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but a sudden reflection froze the words on her lips. She remained silent and blushed violently, looking at Sauvresy with an indefinable expression. He did not observe this, being inspired by a restless though aimless curiosity. This proof, which Jenny talked about, worried him.
“Suppose,” said he, “you should show me this letter.”
She seemed to feel at these words an electric shock.
“To you?” she said, shuddering. “Never!”
If, when one is sleeping, the thunder rolls and the storm bursts, it often happens that the sleep is not troubled; then suddenly, at a certain moment, the imperceptible flutter of a passing insect’s wing awakens one.
Jenny’s shudder was like such a fluttering to Sauvresy. The sinister light of doubt struck on his soul. Now his confidence, his happiness, his repose, were gone forever. He rose with a flashing eye and trembling lips.
“Give me the letter,” said he, in an imperious tone. Jenny recoiled with terror. She tried to conceal her agitation, to smile, to turn the matter into a joke.
“Not to-day,” said she. “Another time; you are too curious.”
But Sauvresy’s anger was terrible; he became as purple as if he had had a stroke of apoplexy, and he repeated, in a choking voice:
“The letter, I demand the letter.”
“Impossible,” said Jenny. “Because,” she added, struck with an idea, “I haven’t got it here.”
“Where is it?”
“At my room, in Paris.”
“Come, then, let us go there.”
She saw that she was caught; and she could find no more excuses, quick-witted as she was. She might, however, easily have followed Sauvresy, put his suspicions to sleep with her gayety, and when once in the Paris streets, might have eluded him and fled. But she did not think of that. It occurred to her that she might have time to reach the door, open it, and rush downstairs. She started to do so. Sauvresy caught her at a bound, shut the door, and said, in a low, hoarse voice:
“Wretched girl! Do you wish me to strike you?”
He pushed her into a chair, returned to the door, double locked it, and put the keys in his pocket. “Now,” said he, returning to the girl, “the letter.”
Jenny had never been so terrified in her life. This man’s rage made her tremble; she saw that he was beside himself, that she was completely at his mercy; yet she still resisted him.
“You have hurt me very much,” said she, crying, “but I have done you no harm.”
He grasped her hands in his, and bending over her, repeated:
“For the last time, the letter; give it to me, or I will take it by force.”
It would have been folly to resist longer. “Leave me alone,” said she. “You shall have it.”
He released her, remaining, however, close by her side, while she searched in all her pockets. Her hair had been loosened in the struggle, her collar was torn, she was tired, her teeth chattered, but her eyes shone with a bold resolution.
“Wait—here it is—no. It’s odd—I am sure I’ve got it though —I had it a minute ago—”
And, suddenly, with a rapid gesture, she put the letter, rolled into a ball, into her mouth, and tried to swallow it. But Sauvresy as quickly grasped her by the throat, and she was forced to disgorge it.
He had the letter at last. His hands trembled so that he could scarcely open it.
It was, indeed, Bertha’s writing.
Sauvresy tottered with a horrible sensation of dizziness; he could not see clearly; there was a red cloud before his eyes; his legs gave way under him, he staggered, and his hands stretched out for a support. Jenny, somewhat recovered, hastened to give him help; but her touch made him shudder, and he repulsed her. What had happened he could not tell. Ah, he wished to read this letter and could not. He went to the table, turned out and drank two large glasses of water one after another. The cold draught restored him, his blood resumed its natural course, and he could see. The note was short, and this was what he read:
“Don’t go to-morrow to Petit-Bourg; or rather, return before breakfast. He has just told me that he must go to Melun, and that he should return late. A whole day!”
“He”—that was himself. This other lover of Hector’s was Bertha, his wife. For a moment he saw nothing but that; all thought was crushed within him. His temples beat furiously, he heard a dreadful buzzing in his ears, it seemed to him as if the earth were about to swallow him up. He fell into a chair; from purple he became ashy white. Great tears trickled down his cheeks.
Jenny understood the miserable meanness of her conduct when she saw this great grief, this silent despair, this man with a broken heart. Was she not the cause of all? She had guessed who the writer of the note was. She thought when she asked Sauvresy to come to her, that she could tell him all, and thus avenge herself at once upon Hector and her rival. Then, on seeing this man refusing to comprehend her hints, she had been full of pity for him. She had said to herself that he would be the one who would be most cruelly punished; and then she had recoiled—but too late—and he had snatched the secret from her.
She approached Sauvresy and tried to take his hands; he still repulsed her.
“Let me alone,” said he.
“Pardon me, sir—I am a wretch, I am horrified at myself.”
He rose suddenly; he was gradually coming to himself.
“What do you want?”
“That letter—I guessed—”
He burst into a loud, bitter, discordant laugh, and replied:
“God forgive me! Why, my dear, did you dare to suspect my wife?”
While
