"Do you understand, my friend? I am dying, and from my bed I can hear
a man walking to and fro in the drawing-room; my creditors have put him
there to see that nothing is taken away, and that nothing remains to
me in case I do not die. I hope they will wait till the end before they
begin to sell.
"Oh, men have no pity! or rather, I am wrong, it is God who is just and
inflexible!
"And now, dear love, you will come to my sale, and you will buy
something, for if I put aside the least thing for you, they might accuse
you of embezzling seized goods.
"It is a sad life that I am leaving!
"It would be good of God to let me see you again before I die. According
to all probability, good-bye, my friend. Pardon me if I do not write a
longer letter, but those who say they are going to cure me wear me out
with bloodletting, and my hand refuses to write any more.
"MARGUERITE GAUTIER."
The last two words were scarcely legible. I returned the letter to
Armand, who had, no doubt, read it over again in his mind while I was
reading it on paper, for he said to me as he took it: "Who would think that a kept woman could have written that?" And,
overcome by recollections, he gazed for some time at the writing of the
letter, which he finally carried to his lips.
"And when I think," he went on, "that she died before I could see her,
and that I shall never see her again, when I think that she did for me
what no sister would ever have done, I can not forgive myself for having
left her to die like that. Dead! Dead and thinking of me, writing and
repeating my name, poor dear Marguerite!"
And Armand, giving free outlet to his thoughts and his tears, held out
his hand to me, and continued: "People would think it childish enough if they saw me lament like this
over a dead woman such as she; no one will ever know what I made that
woman suffer, how cruel I have been to her! how good, how resigned
she was! I thought it was I who had to forgive her, and to-day I feel
unworthy of the forgiveness which she grants me. Oh, I would give ten
years of my life to weep at her feet for an hour!"
It is always difficult to console a sorrow that is unknown to one, and
nevertheless I felt so lively a sympathy for the young man, he made me
so frankly the confidant of his distress, that I believed a word from me
would not be indifferent to him, and I said: "Have you no parents, no friends? Hope. Go and see them; they will
console you. As for me, I can only pity you."