“We did have a little difference,” Oscar
replied, quietly.
“Oh, it did not amount to anything,” he
said, lighting his cigar; “let us make friends
again, won’t you?” he added, holding out
his hand to Jacqueline. She was obliged to give
him the tips of her fingers, as she said in her turn,
with audacity equal to his own:
“Oh, it was less than nothing. Only, Giselle,
I told your husband that I had had some bad news,
and shall have to go back to Paris, and he tried to
persuade me not to go.”
“I beg you not to go,” said Oscar, vehemently.
“Bad news?” repeated Giselle, “you
did not say a word to me about it!”
“I did not have a chance. My old Modeste
is very ill and asks me to come to her. I should
never forgive myself if I did not go.”
“What, Modeste? So very ill? Is it
really so serious? What a pity! But you
will come back again?”
“If I can. But I must leave Fresne to-morrow
morning.”
“Oh, I defy you to leave Fresne!” said
M. de Talbrun.
Jacqueline leaned toward him, and said firmly, but
in a low voice: “If you attempt to hinder
me, I swear I will tell everything.”
All that evening she did not leave Giselle’s
side for a moment, and at night she locked herself
into her chamber and barricaded the door, as if a
mad dog or a murderer were at large in the chateau.
Giselle came into her room at an early hour.
“Is what you said yesterday the truth, Jacqueline?
Is Modeste really ill? Are you sure you have
had no reason to complain of anybody in this place?—of
any one?”
Then, after a pause, she added:
“Oh, my darling, how hard it is to do good even
to those whom we most dearly love.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Jacqueline,
with an effort. “Everybody has been kind
to me.”
They kissed each other with effusion, but M. de Talbrun’s
leave-taking was icy in the extreme. Jacqueline
had made a mortal enemy.
The grand outline of the chateau, built of brick and
stone with its wings flanked by towers, the green
turf of the great park in which it stood, passed from
her sight as she drove away, like some vision in a
dream.
“I shall never come back—never come
back!” thought Jacqueline. She felt as
if she had been thrust out everywhere. For one
moment she thought of seeking refuge at Lizerolles,
which was not very many miles from the railroad station,
and when there of telling Madame d’Argy of her
difficulties, and asking her advice; but false pride
kept her from doing so—the same false pride
which had made her write coldly, in answer to the
letters full of feeling and sympathy Fred had written
to her on receiving news of her father’s death.
TREACHEROUS KINDNESS
The experience through which Jacqueline had just passed
was not calculated to fortify her or to elevate her
soul. She felt for the first time that her unprotected
situation and her poverty exposed her to insult, for
what other name could she give to the outrageous behavior
of M. de Talbrun, which had degraded her in her own
eyes?
