Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/484

 fields, and the sunny skies of our own Normandy? How different from these grey, dismal hills! And do you remember the day you told me your mother recalled you to Paris? You cannot have forgotten it! Lady Hamilton, everything else is changed, but I alone remain the same."

The broken voice, the trembling gestures betrayed deep and uncontrollable emotion. Even Cerise could not but feel that this man was strangely affected by her presence, that his self-command was every moment forsaking him, and that already words might be hovering on his lips to which she must not listen. Perhaps, too, there was some little curiosity to hear what those words could be—some half-scornful reflection that when spoken it would be time enough to disapprove—some petulant triumph to think that everybody was not distant, reserved, impenetrable, like Sir George.

"And who wishes you to change?" said she, softly. "Not I for one."

"I shall remember those words when I am far away," he answered, passionately. "Remember them! I shall think of them day by day, and hour by hour, long after you have forgotten there was ever such a person in existence as Florian de St. Croix. Your director, your worshipper. Cerise! your slave!"

She turned on him angrily. All her dignity was aroused by such an appeal in such a tone, made to her, a wedded wife, but her indignation, natural as it was, changed to pity when she marked his pale, worn face, his imploring looks, his complete prostration, as it seemed, both of mind and body. It was no fault of hers, yet was it the wreck she herself had made. Angry! No, she could not be angry, when she thought of all he must have suffered, and for her; when she remembered how this man had never so much as asked for a kind word in exchange for the sacrifice of his soul.

The tears stood in her eyes, and when she spoke again her voice was very low and pitiful.

"Florian," said she, "listen to me. If not for your own sake, at least for mine, forbear to speak words that can never be unsaid. You have been to me, I hope and believe, the truest friend man ever was to woman. Do you think I