After my last tÊte-À-tÊte with Caroline I went less frequently to her house, and never went there without my children. The season was advancing; we were to stay in the country but a short time, and I took them to walk with me in the woods every day. Sometimes Madame Ernest went with us; I noticed that she was more friendly with me, that she was in better spirits since I had ceased to pass so much time at Monsieur Roquencourt’s. I concluded that she must have something against her neighbors. But as she was as kind and attentive as always to me and my children, and as her husband’s affection for me showed no diminution, I asked them for nothing more.

I often noticed that Madame Ernest seemed to want to speak to me. I could read faces well enough to feel sure that she had something to say to me. But if that was so, what prevented her? When I was lost in thought, I saw her scrutinize me furtively, then look at my children; but she either said nothing or talked about things which could not interest me.

One afternoon we all went into the forest of Vincennes together. I led Henriette and EugÈne by the hand, and Madame Ernest led her little son and daughter. Night was approaching. As we entered a shaded path, EugÈne cried:

“Oh! I’m afraid of the spectre here!”

“Of the spectre?” I said, taking him in my arms. “Who has told you anything about a spectre, my dear?”

“The nurse,” cried Madame Ernest’s little girl; “she says there’s a spectre in our house, and that she’s seen it in the garden.”

“Your nurse is a silly creature, and so are you, mademoiselle,” said her mother hastily; “I shall forbid her to talk to you about such things.”

“Oh! I have heard about it too,” said Henriette, “and the nurse declared that she has seen, or heard, the spectre near the little summer-house.”

“Mon Dieu! what idiots those people are! And how can you repeat such things, Henriette—such a sensible girl as you are?”

Madame Ernest seemed very much irritated that there had been any talk of spectres. I began to laugh.

“Why, really,” I said, “it almost seems as if you took the thing seriously. Do you imagine that I am going to run off as fast as I can because these children say that there’s a spectre in your house?”

“No, of course not; but don’t you agree with me that it’s wrong to make children timid by talking to them about such things?”

“That is the very reason why it is better to laugh with them than to be angry. I am very sure that you are not afraid of the spectre, Henriette, because you understand that there are no such things.”

“Oh! papa, I don’t know whether there are any such things, but I’m a little bit afraid too. And the other night I woke up and thought I saw something white going out of my room. Oh! I wanted to shriek; but I just put my head under the bedclothes.”

“But, my dear love, you ought to find out first of all what you’re afraid of. What is a spectre? Tell me.”

“It is—I don’t know, papa.”

“Oh! I know,” cried little Ernest, “a spectre is a ghost.”

“Indeed! and what is a ghost?”

“A spectre.”

“Bravo! you are quite capable of explaining the Apocalypse!”

“A spectre,” cried the little girl in her turn, “is a devil with a red tail and green horns, that comes at night and pulls naughty little children’s toes.”

That definition made Marguerite and me laugh; but I agreed that she would do well to scold the nurse for telling the children such tales. Young imaginations should never be terrified and darkened. The time when things cease to look rose-colored to us comes quickly enough.

We returned to the house talking of spectres. I kissed my children, who went off to bed; then I walked in the garden. It was a magnificent evening and seemed to me to invite one to breathe the cool, moist air. I soon found myself near the summer-house, which was not occupied. The moon was shining on that part of the garden; but its light always inclines one to melancholy. As I glanced at the clumps of trees about me, I remembered the spectre of which we had been talking, and although I am not a believer in ghosts, I realized that, by assisting one’s imagination a little, it was easy to see behind that foliage ghostly figures which moved with the faintest breeze.

I seated myself on a bench by the summer-house. The night was so soft and still that I did not think of returning to the house. The image of Caroline, the memory of EugÉnie, presented themselves before my mind in turn. I sighed as I reflected that I must fly from the first because she loved me, and forget the other because she did not love me. But she was the mother of my children. They had spoken of her again that day, and had asked me if she would come home soon. I did not know what reply to make. Ernest and his wife never mentioned EugÉnie, and their silence surprised and disquieted me. Not a word of her—nothing to tell me where she was, what she was doing, or if she were still alive. She was so changed, so ill, at Mont-d’Or! I would have liked to hear from her. I could not love her, but she would never be indifferent to me.

In these reflections I forgot the time. A sound quite near me caused me to raise my head. It was like a faint sigh. I saw nobody, so I stood up. It seemed to me that I could distinguish, through the leaves, something white running toward the other end of the garden. I remembered the spectre. My curiosity was aroused; I walked to the path where I thought that I had seen something; but I found nothing, and I decided to go to my room; for it was late and everybody else had already retired, no doubt.

I certainly did not believe in ghosts; but I recalled Madame Ernest’s impatience when the children mentioned the subject, and I suspected that there was some mystery at the bottom of it all. I determined to solve it, for something told me that I was interested in it.

I went to bed, but I could not sleep. Tormented by my thoughts, I decided to rise again, and I was about to open my window when it seemed to me that I heard a noise at the end of the corridor, in my children’s room. I opened my door very softly. At that instant a sort of white shadow came out of the other room. I confess that my heart fluttered slightly at first. I was on the point of rushing toward that mysterious being; but I restrained myself and waited silently, without moving a hair, to see what was the meaning of it all.

After closing the door of the children’s chamber, the shade stopped and picked up a lantern; then it walked slowly toward me. It was a woman; I could see that.—But I recognized her: it was EugÉnie!

She walked very softly, apparently afraid of making a sound. Her white dress, and the long muslin veil that was thrown back from her head, gave her a sort of ethereal, unsubstantial aspect at a distance. I had no doubt that she was the spectre that had frightened the nurse and children.

Poor EugÉnie! her face was almost as pale as her clothes. What a sad expression in her eyes! what prostration in her whole person!—She stopped; she was standing at the head of the stairs. She turned her face toward the room she had just left, then looked in my direction. I trembled lest she should see me; but no, I had no light and my room was very dark. She made up her mind at last to go downstairs; I ran to my window and saw the little lantern pass rapidly through the garden and disappear near the summer-house.

So it was EugÉnie who occupied that building, which was always carefully closed; Ernest and Marguerite had given it to her so that she could readily go to the house to see her children. So she was there—very near me—had been there a long while perhaps, and I had no suspicion of it. What was her object, her hope? Was it because of her children only that she had concealed herself there?—But Ernest and his wife knew perfectly well that I would not prevent her from seeing them.

I determined to learn the motive of EugÉnie’s conduct, and the plans of Marguerite and her husband. To that end, I must be careful not to let them suspect that I had seen the pretended spectre; and I must try to learn something more the next night.

The intervening time seemed terribly long to me. During the day, I involuntarily walked toward the summer-house several times; but everything was closed as usual. I noticed that the door, which was on the side of the building toward the forest, was very conveniently situated for anyone to go in and out of the garden unseen.

The night came at last. I kissed my children and they were taken to their room. When I supposed that they were asleep, I bade my hosts good-night and withdrew to my room, on the pretext that I had a violent headache; but I had no sooner entered the room than I stole forth again softly, without a light, and went to that occupied by my children. The key was in the door; I went in, and sat down by my daughter’s bed to wait until somebody should come; both she and her brother were sleeping quietly.

At last, some time after everybody was in bed, I heard stealthy steps outside. I instantly left my chair and hid behind the long window curtains. I was hardly out of sight when the door was softly opened, and EugÉnie entered the chamber, carrying her little lantern, which she carefully placed at the foot of her son’s cradle.

She threw her veil back over her shoulders, and, stealing forward on tiptoe, leaned over Henriette’s bed and kissed her without waking her; she did the same with EugÈne, then sat down facing the children and gazed long at them as they lay sleeping.

I dared not move; I hardly breathed; but EugÉnie was almost facing me; I could see her face and count her sighs. She put her handkerchief to her eyes, which were filled with tears, and I heard broken sentences come from her lips.

“Poor children! What an unhappy wretch I am! But I must deprive myself of your caresses—you will never call me mother again. And he—he will never more call me his EugÉnie!—Oh! cruelly am I punished!”

Her sobs redoubled, and I had to summon all my courage to refrain from flying to her, wiping away her tears and pressing her to my heart as of old.

We remained in those respective positions for a long while. At last EugÉnie rose and seemed to be on the point of taking leave of her children, when someone softly opened the door. EugÉnie started back in alarm; but she was reassured when she recognized Marguerite. The latter carefully closed the door, then seated herself by EugÉnie’s side; and although they spoke in low tones, I did not lose a word of their conversation.

“My husband is working; I did not feel like sleeping, and I thought that I should find you here; so I came as quietly as possible. However, there’s no light in Monsieur BlÉmont’s room, and I fancy that he has long been asleep.—Well! still crying! You are making yourself worse—you are very foolish.”

“Oh! madame, tears and regrets are my lot henceforth. I cannot expect any other existence.”

“Who knows? you must not lose hope; if your husband could read the depths of your heart, I believe that he would forgive you.”

“No, madame, for he would always remember my sin; nothing would make my motives less blameworthy in his eyes. And yet, although I am very guilty, I am less so perhaps than he thinks. You have understood me, for women can understand one another. But a man! he sees only the crime, without looking to see what might have driven a woman to forget her duties. And yet, heaven is my witness that, if I had loved him less, I should never have become guilty. If he should hear me say that, he would smile with pity, with contempt; but you—you know that it is true.”

EugÉnie laid her head on Marguerite’s shoulder, and sobbed more bitterly than ever. For some minutes they said nothing. At last EugÉnie continued:

“I know that my jealousy did not justify me in becoming guilty; but, my God! as if I knew what I was doing! I believed that I was forgotten, deceived, betrayed, by a husband whom I adored. I had but one desire—to repay a part of what he had made me suffer. ‘Play the flirt,’ I was told, ‘and you will bring your husband back to your arms; men soon become cold to a woman whom no one seems to desire to possess.’—I believed that; or, rather, I believed that Henri had never loved me; and then I tried to cease loving him. You know, madame, how jealous I was of you. That ball at which you were—at which he danced with you—oh! that ball fairly drove me mad. Before that, my jealousy had banished peace from our household. Alas! it was never to return! I plunged into the whirlpool of society; not that I was happy there; but I tried to forget, and I was pleased to see that he was distressed by my conduct.

“Fatal blindness! I preferred his anger to his indifference! When I had once sinned, I cannot attempt to tell you what took place within me; I tried to deceive myself as to the enormity of my sin; I lived in a never-ending whirl of dissipation, afraid to reflect, doing my utmost to put Henri in the wrong, to convince myself that he had betrayed me a hundred times, and, for all that, realizing perfectly that I had destroyed my own peace of mind forever. When my husband learned the truth, I did not stoop to try to obtain forgiveness by tears. No, I preferred to try to deceive myself still.—Great heaven! what must he have thought of my heart on reading the two letters that I wrote him! A woman who detested him would not have written differently. But, as if I were not already guilty enough, I tried still to make him believe that I felt no repentance for what I had done. I continued to go into society. ‘He will know it,’ I said to myself; ‘he will think that I am happy without him;’ and that thought strengthened me to hold myself in check in the midst of the crowd and to affect a gayety which was so far from my heart. But I knew nothing of his duel and his illness. Those two things, which I learned at almost the same time, made it impossible for me to put any further constraint on myself; it seemed to me that a bandage fell from my eyes. The thought that I might have caused his death terrified me. From that moment the world became hateful to me! I realized the depth of my wrongdoing; when I knew you and heard what you said, I found that I had suspected Henri unjustly, that he really loved me when I believed that he was unfaithful to me. He loved me, and it was by my own fault that I lost his love! Oh! madame, that thought is killing me—and you expect me to cease weeping!”

“But why shouldn’t you consent to let us mention you to him, to let us try to move him?”

“Oh, no! that is impossible; somebody else has tried it already, and to no purpose, as I have told you. That young woman, Mademoiselle Caroline Derbin, whom he met, I believe, at Mont-d’Or,—that young woman, who thought that he was a bachelor at first, learned, I don’t know how, that he was my husband; then, believing that it was he who had abandoned me, she begged him, implored him, to return to me. I was near them, without their knowing it, in the courtyard of the inn; I overheard all their conversation. He was kind enough also to allow himself to be blamed for wrongs of which he was not guilty; he did not try to disabuse her with regard to me. But, when she begged him to return to me, I heard him say: ‘We are parted forever!’—Ah! those cruel words echoed in the depths of my heart, and I cannot understand why they did not kill me, although I had lost all hope of obtaining forgiveness.”

“There is nothing to prove that his answer to Mademoiselle Derbin represents his opinion to-day. I told you how he had changed to his son, poor little EugÈne, whom he would hardly look at when he first came here; now he seems as fond of him as of his daughter.”

“Oh! since I first sinned, I have known but one moment’s happiness—that was when I learned that he no longer refused to take his son in his arms! Poor child! because your mother was guilty, could your father treat you as a stranger all your life? But I solemnly swear that I was without reproach when my son was born, and Henri can safely take him in his arms!”

What I had heard caused me such intense pleasure that I cannot describe it; I had to lean against the window; for joy often takes away all our strength. Luckily Marguerite continued the conversation; they did not hear the movement that I was unable to restrain.

“What makes me hope that Monsieur BlÉmont may yet forgive you, madame, is the pains that he has taken to conceal your wrongdoing. Nobody knows anything about it; he alone has incurred all the blame.”

“Oh! he has done that for the honor of his name, for his children; but do not infer from that that he will forgive me. Henri loved me too dearly—and I wrecked his life! No, I entreat you again, never speak to him about me! Let him forget me—but let him love his children! Is not that all that I can ask? Thanks to your kindness—to your compassion for me—I can at least see him. Hidden in the summer-house which you have given me, I can look into the garden through a hole in the shutters. Henri often walks there; sometimes I hear his voice, I see him with his children.—Then—oh! madame, such joy and such agony as I feel!—Had I not a place between my children and him?—And I can never occupy it again!”

“Poor EugÉnie! Calm yourself, for heaven’s sake.”

“Oh, yes! I must restrain my sobs, for I don’t want to disturb my children’s sleep. I can kiss them every night; that is my sole consolation; but they do not call me their mother any more. Oh! madame, it is ghastly never to hear that name!”

“You could come to see them if you chose. You could send for them to come to you. Monsieur BlÉmont has never had any idea of depriving you of their caresses.”

“No, I am no longer worthy of them. Besides, they will grow up. What can you reply to children who ask you why you do not live with their father? It is much better that they should not see me; that they should forget their mother!”

After another interval, filled only by EugÉnie’s subdued moans, she continued:

“Alas! my heart is torn by still another pang. You have guessed it—you who can read my heart so well, who are so kind to me, and whom I misunderstood and blamed for so long!”

“Hush!” said Marguerite, embracing her; “haven’t I forbidden you to mention that again? But I have some good news for you: for some days Monsieur BlÉmont has been to see Mademoiselle Derbin much less frequently; he passes less time with her.”

“He goes there less? Is it possible? Oh! I no longer have any right to be jealous, madame, I know; I have no claim to his heart; and yet I cannot reconcile myself to the thought that he loves another. And this Caroline is so lovely; and then she loves him—I am perfectly sure of that.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Oh! women are never mistaken about such things, you know. I discovered it at Mont-d’Or; I was certain of it when I overheard their conversation on the evening that he left. To be sure, she begged him to come back to me; but her voice trembled, she could hardly restrain her tears. In short, she spoke to him as one speaks to a person whom one loves, even when one is trying to pretend to hate him. Poor Caroline! she had thought that he was free and a bachelor. She had abandoned herself without fear to the pleasure of loving him.”

“Very well; but now when she knows perfectly well that he is married, and above all, when she thinks that it was he who deserted you, why does she bring her uncle here to Saint-MandÉ, and settle down within two steps of us? Why does she invite Monsieur BlÉmont to come to see her? Is that the way for a woman to act with a man whom she is determined not to love, whom she is trying to forget? I confess that that has not given me a very favorable opinion of that young lady, and Monsieur BlÉmont must have noticed more than once that I don’t like her, although I don’t know her.”

“What can you expect? She still loves him—she longed to see him again. But if only he might not love her! Since I have seen him every day, since, thanks to you, I have been living so near him, I have indulged in illusions; I have fancied sometimes that I still reigned in his heart; and the awakening is very bitter!—No, I am nothing more than a stranger now; I can never recover the place that I once filled in his heart. Others must have his love.”

“Why forbid us to speak to him of you sometimes?”

“Oh! never, never, I implore you! My children speak of me to him; I often hear them ask about their mother. If he is deaf to their voices, do you think that he will be moved by yours? Wait until he himself—but he will never ask what has become of me!”

“I cannot believe that he has entirely forgotten you.—But it is late; you must go; it is time for you to be in bed.”

Marguerite took the light, while EugÉnie went to look at her children and kiss them once more. But Marguerite led her away and they both left the room, closing the door with great caution.

I listened to their footsteps for a few seconds, until I could no longer hear them. Then I left my hiding-place, and I too kissed my children, but with a keener delight than usual; and, taking equal precautions to make no noise, I returned to my room. The conversation that I had overheard was engraved on my memory, and my course was already resolved upon, my plan of action formed.