Page:The red and the black (1916).djvu/464

444 She changed colour. "Would it really make you unhappy," she said to him, "to pass six months far away from me?"

"Infinitely so. It is the only thing in the world which terrifies me."

Mathilde was very happy. Julien had played his part so assiduously that he had succeeded in making her think that she was the one of the two who loved the more.

The fatal Tuesday arrived. When the marquis came in at midnight he found a letter addressed to him, which was only to be opened himself when no one was there:—

"My father,

"All social ties have been broken between us, only those of nature remain. Next to my husband, you are and always will be the being I shall always hold most dear. My eyes are full of tears, I am thinking of the pain that I am causing you, but if my shame was to be prevented from becoming public, and you were to be given time to reflect and act, I could not postpone any longer the confession that I owe you. If your affection for me, which I know is extremely deep, is good enough to grant me a small allowance, I will go and settle with my husband anywhere you like, in Switzerland, for instance. His name is so obscure that no one would recognize in Madame Sorel, the daughter-in-law of a Verrières' carpenter, your daughter. That is the name which I have so much difficulty in writing. I fear your wrath against Julien, it seems so justified. I shall not be a duchess, my father; but I knew it when I loved him; for I was the one who loved him first, it was I who seduced him. I have inherited from you too lofty a soul to fix my attention on what either is or appears to be vulgar. It is in vain that I thought of M. Croisenois with a view to pleasing you. Why did you place real merit under my eyes? You told me yourself on my return from Hyères, 'that young Sorel is the one person who amuses me,' the poor boy is as grieved as I am if it is possible, at the pain this letter will give you. I cannot prevent you being irritated as a father, but love me as a friend.

"Julien respected me. If he sometimes spoke to me, it was only by reason of his deep gratitude towards yourself, for the natural dignity of his character induces him to keep to his official capacity in any answers he may make to anyone who is so much above him. He has a keen and instinctive appreciation of the difference of social rank. It was I (I confess it with a blush to my best friend, and I shall never make such a confession to anyone else) who clasped his arm one day in the garden.

"Why need you be irritated with him, after twenty-four hours have elapsed? My own lapse is irreparable. If you insist on it, the assurance of his profound respect and of his desperate grief at