Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/220

 come, and the Director, exerting his rights, has demanded damages to the extent of 7,000 piastres. I paid, and have also paid the actors up to to-day. I bring back my routed army to the banks of the Seine, and I, perhaps, like another Napoleon, will go and ask a stone on which to lay my head and die at the Invalides. But no; I will find my two guardian angels—my young sons. I hear their voices calling me. I have been too long away from their kisses, their caresses, their love.

I do not regret the money I have lost; I do not regret the fatigue I have undergone. I have carried my name as far as I could, and I bring back my heart to those who love me.

And so the great tragedian, who for years had filled Europe with stories of her fascinations and the power of her genius, now returned to Paris, the scene of her greatest triumphs, sad and broken-hearted, with but one desire, one thought—to escape publicity and be left in peace. Immediately on her arrival she left again for Meulan, where, in companionship with the man who ruled her heart, she spent some months vainly endeavouring to build up her shattered health. She had brought back her heart to those who loved her; but her body, "that body of which she had been so proud," was a mere wreck. In her calmer moments Rachel knew she was doomed; but, with the strange hoping against hope which distinguishes consumptive patients, she entertained to the last the hope of recovery. The one thing she longed for was to live forgotten by the world, that world for whose notice and applause she had struggled so hard all her life. The shadow of death had passed across her sun, and she who had, as a rule, so recklessly defied public opinion, now was filled with dread that the scandalmongers, pandering to the public taste for gossip, should write garbled accounts of her life, and give them forth to the world. "Perhaps this is the last thing I shall ever write," she said, giving her auto-