Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/543

 "My love!" he whispered; but, notwithstanding his past suspicions, his injustice, his cruel condemnation, this seemed all the amends he was disposed to make; for he went on to tell her how the coach had been beset, and how he must himself have been killed, but for Florian's self-*devotion—Florian, who was now lying dead in the very room that had lately come to be called his own.

She wanted no explanation, no apology. She had forgiven him long before he spoke. She had thought him estranged; she had believed him dead; and now he was alive again, and he was her own.

"I care not! I care not!" she exclaimed, wildly. "Let them live or die; what is it to me, so that you are safe! Shame on me," she added, with more composure, "how selfish I am—how heartless! Let us go to him, George, and see if nothing can be done."

Nothing could be done, of course. Hand in hand, husband and wife visited the chamber of death, hand in hand they left it, with saddened faces and slow, reverential step. But Sir George never forgot the lesson of that night; never again doubted the woman who had given him her whole heart; nor joined in the sneer of those who protest that purity and self-sacrifice are incompatible with earthly love.

But for the snow, Madame de Montmirail would have left Hamilton Hill next day. It was delightful, no doubt, to witness the perfect understanding, the mutual confidence, that had been re-established between Cerise and her husband; but it was not amusing. "Gratifying, but a little wearisome," said the Marquise to herself, while she looked from her window on the smooth undulating expanse of white that forbade the prospect of travelling till there should come a thaw. Never perhaps in her whole life had this lady so much felt the want of excitement, intrigue, business, dissipation, even danger, to take her out of herself, as she expressed it, and preserve the blood from stagnating in her veins. It is only doing her justice also to state that she was somewhat anxious about Malletort. With half a yard of snow on the ground, however, not to mention drifts, it was hopeless to speculate on any subject out of doors till the weather changed.