It was difficult for me to begin the conversation on the subject which
brought her. Marguerite no doubt realized it, for she went on: "I have come to trouble you, Armand, for I have two things to ask:
pardon for what I said yesterday to Mlle. Olympe, and pity for what you
are perhaps still ready to do to me. Intentionally or not, since your
return you have given me so much pain that I should be incapable now of
enduring a fourth part of what I have endured till now. You will have
pity on me, won't you? And you will understand that a man who is not
heartless has other nobler things to do than to take his revenge upon a
sick and sad woman like me. See, take my hand. I am in a fever. I left
my bed to come to you, and ask, not for your friendship, but for your
indifference."
I took Marguerite's hand. It was burning, and the poor woman shivered
under her fur cloak.
I rolled the arm-chair in which she was sitting up to the fire.
"Do you think, then, that I did not suffer," said I, "on that night
when, after waiting for you in the country, I came to look for you in
Paris, and found nothing but the letter which nearly drove me mad? How
could you have deceived me, Marguerite, when I loved you so much?
"Do not speak of that, Armand; I did not come to speak of that. I wanted
to see you only not an enemy, and I wanted to take your hand once more.
You have a mistress; she is young, pretty, you love her they say. Be
happy with her and forget me."
"And you. You are happy, no doubt?"
"Have I the face of a happy woman, Armand? Do not mock my sorrow, you,
who know better than any one what its cause and its depth are."
"It only depended on you not to have been unhappy at all, if you are as
you say."
"No, my friend; circumstances were stronger than my will. I obeyed,
not the instincts of a light woman, as you seem to say, but a serious
necessity, and reasons which you will know one day, and which will make
you forgive me."
"Why do you not tell me those reasons to-day?"
"Because they would not bring about an impossible reunion between us,
and they would separate you perhaps from those from whom you must not be
separated."