“I remember the road seemed very long to us, that we took a deer which crossed our path for a wolf, and three peasants for robbers. However, on seeing that the wolf did not attack us, and that the robbers proceeded quietly on their way, our courage revived, and we walked along briskly, till, at the end of an hour, we arrived without any further misadventures at Glatigny.

  “Our first care was to inquire for the florist.

  “His house was pointed out to us at the end of a narrow lane not far off. We went in, and saw, standing in the middle of magnificent flower beds, lost in a perfect forest of dahlias, a benevolent-looking old man, who smiled at us and asked what we wanted.

  “‘Some flowers, please,’ I said, coming towards him, ‘and for all that money,’ I continued, proudly showing him two five franc pieces, the sum total of our united fortunes.

  “As to Madeleine, she lingered a little behind, very nervous, and very red.

  “‘You want some flowers,’ replied the good old man, ‘and for all that money.’

  “‘Yes! ‘said Madeleine, ‘and if possible, they must be lovely ones; because we want them for a birthday gift to my father, Doctor d’Avrigny.’

  “‘Oh! if they are for Doctor d’Avrigny,’ said the gardener, ‘you are quite right, my children, nothing can be too good for him; choose therefore, what you like, the flower beds are at your disposal; and you may also go into the hot-houses, and, with the exception of a few especially rare specimens, which I will point out to you, you may pick what you like.’

  “‘All the flowers we like! ‘I cried, clapping my hands.

  “‘All, all, all! ‘said Madeleine.

  “‘Well! all that you can carry, my dear children.’

  ‘“Oh! be careful what you say, for we are very strong.’

  “‘Yes! but Ville d’Auray is far from here.’

  “We, however, did not wait to hear more, but ran hither and thither, and, followed by the kind old gardener, we gathered our harvest of flowers.

  “It was a race as to which should find the finest; the bees and the butterflies must have been alarmed at our depredations.

  “Then we would shower questions on our good old friend:

  “‘May we pick this one?’

  “‘Of course you may!’

  “‘And that one?’

  “‘Assuredly.’

  “‘And this one too?’

  “‘Yes!’

  “‘Ah! but here is the finest of all. It is surely, surely too beautiful for me to have; you want to keep this one? ‘“‘No! here it is.’

  “We were beside ourselves with joy; we were not laden with bouquets, but with perfect haystacks of flowers.

  “‘But you will never be able to carry all that,’ the florist said to me.

  “‘Oh yes! yes,’ we both cried, as we each took up our mazzo. (bouquet)

  “‘And they let you walk through the wood alone? ‘asked the gardener.

  “‘Of course,’ I replied proudly, ‘my people know that the road is familiar to me.’

  “‘Then you are not afraid to return alone?’

  “‘I should think not.’ “‘Well! my little ones, a pleasant walk to you, and tell the doctor that these flowers are from the gardener at Glatigny, whose daughter’s life he saved.’

  “He had no need to say this twice; but off we went, our arms well-filled, and our little selves in high glee.

  “Can you understand it, Antoinette; the doctor, had saved this man’s child, a perfect stranger, and yet he has not been able to save his own daughter.

  “We were afraid of but one thing. Supposing our absence had been noticed! supposing Monsieur d’Avrigny had returned and asked for us! — merely in gathering the flowers, we had spent quite two hours; we must therefore have been away at least three hours.

  “Looking about, in my perplexity, I had the misfortune to catch sight of a cross-road which I thought would certainly shorten our way home. Madeleine’s fears about wolves and robbers had somewhat died away.

  “Besides, you remember, Antoinette, what absolute confidence my beloved Madeleine had in me. She therefore followed me unquestioningly.

  “The result of this blind confidence was that we started fearlessly along a path which I thought I knew, and which brought us to another path, then to some cross-roads, eventually into a perfect maze of delightful but lonely roads. However, after walking about for a whole hour, I was obliged to own that I had lost my way, and no longer knew where we were, nor in which direction we should go.

  “Madeleine began to cry.

  “Can you imagine how I felt, Antoinette; we were getting very hungry, so I knew it must be nearly dinner-time; then, our enormous bouquets were weighing us down, and we began to feel very tired.

  “I thought of Paul and Virginia, poor thoughtless children, who had lost themselves as we had done, but who, unlike our unfortunate selves, had still Domingo and his dog to rely upon. True, the woods at Ville d’Auray are not so lonely as the forests of the Isle of France, but you can understand that to our childish minds, there was’ no great difference between them.

  “However, as bemoaning our fate could not help us out of our difficulty, we pluckily walked along for another hour, but the maze grew more puzzling than ever. We were certainly lost; Madeleine fell exhausted and miserable at the foot of a tree, and I began to feel decidedly uncomfortable.

  “For a quarter of an hour we gave ourselves up to despair, instead of trying to rest; but, suddenly hearing a slight noise behind us, we turned, and saw a poor woman with her child, coming out of the wood. We gave a cry of joy; we were saved.

  “The shipwrecked mariners of the Medusa cannot have embraced each other with greater joy when they saw the sails of the Argus looming on the horizon, than we did at the approach of this woman.

  “I hurried up to her, intending to ask the way, but her misery outstripped my fears, and before I could say a word she exclaimed: ‘Alas! my dear young gentleman, and pretty little lady, have pity on me and my poor child.

  “‘Help us, please help us!’

  “I felt in my pockets, Madeleine did the same, but alas! our ten shillings worth of flowers had drained our purses.

  “We looked shamefacedly at each other; but the beggar mistook cur awkwardness for reluctance.

  “‘Have pity on us,’ she went on, ‘I have been a widow for three months, the little money we had was all spent during my husband’s illness, and his death has exhausted our last resources; besides which I have two children, one an infant in arms, and this little one.

  “‘The poor little angel has had nothing to eat since yesterday, because work is scarce and help is rare., ‘“Take pity on us/my dear little gentleman, and my bonny little lady.’

  “The child, who was no doubt trained to her rôle, began to cry.

  “Madeleine and I, moved to compassion, looked helplessly at each other.

  “We, who had eaten nothing since early morning, were feeling hungry, but this poor child, younger and weaker than ourselves, had not had a morsel to eat since the previous evening.

  “‘Oh! how sad for them! ‘cried Madeleine in her sweet voice.

  “Two tears trembled on her lashes, but with her accustomed promptitude and grace she had soon decided what to do.

  “‘My good woman,’ she said, ‘we have no money at all with us, and besides, in returning from Glatigny to Ville d’Auray, we have lost our way; will you set us on our right road. Then if you will come with us as far as the house of Doctor d’Avrigny, who is our father, I am sure if anyone in the world can and will help you, — he will.’

  “‘Oh! thank you! in the name of my orphan children,’ said the poor woman, clasping her hands.

  “‘But how came you to lose your way? you are within two minutes’ walk of Ville d’Auray; by taking the turning on the left you will be almost within sight of the first houses of the village.’

  “On hearing this, our courage and our strength suddenly revived, and we jumped up briskly and gladly. But our joy quickly changed to fear, when we thought of the probable reception which awaited us. As for me, I own that I followed Madeleine very sheepishly as she walked on ahead with her protégée, who was pouring her tale of woe into my little girl’s sympathetic ears.

  “However when, after passing through the green door, we found ourselves inside the park, and heard Miss Brown calling us anxiously, Madeleine turned to me, biting her lips.

  “‘Now, Amaury,’ she said, ‘what are we going to do, and above all, what are we going to say?’

  “Miss Brown had seen us and was now hurrying towards us.

  “‘You naughty children,’ she cried, ‘how anxious you have made me! I feel more dead than alive! Wherever have you been? Monsieur d’Avrigny has just come home and is asking for you; fortunately, he knows nothing of what has happened.

  “‘I pretended that I was coming here to fetch you, and as you have come back, I am willing to say nothing about your escapade; especially as he would blame me for it, although, thank God, it is no fault of mine,’ she added as if to herself.’

  “‘Oh! what luck!’ I cried on first thoughts.

  “‘Yes! but what of the poor woman? ‘Madeleine said to me.

  “‘Well!’

  “‘How are we to procure the help we have promised her, if we do not own that we lost our way, and she set us on our road again!’

  “‘But we shall be scolded,’ I replied.

  “‘Yes! but she and her child are hungry,’ said Madeleine; ‘is it not best that we should have a scolding, and these poor people be fed.’

  “My lost darling! her whole soul was in this reply.

  “Of course, you can guess that Monsieur d’Avrigny scolded and petted us at one and the same time.

  “As to the poor widow, after making careful enquiries about her, she was sent to the home farm at Meursan, and now there are three more grateful hearts who pray to God for the soul of our Madeleine.

  “When I realize that this little episode occurred only ten years ago!

  “That is all I can find to write you about, Antoinette; although the vast ocean is before me —

  “Alas! my great sorrow finds relief in these reminiscences of childhood, just as the boundless ocean finds amusement in playing with the shells on its shores.

  “‘Nessutt maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria!’

  “AMAURY.”

  MONSIEUR D’AVRIGNY’S DIARY

  “How strange it is! so long as I was childless, I denied the existence of a future life.

  “From the day Madeleine was born, I hoped. From the day she died, I believed.

  “I thank Thee, my God, that Thou hast granted to me faith, at a time when I might have met with nothing but despair.”

  CHAPTER XXXIX.

  ANTOINETTE TO AMAURY

  “October 3rd.”

  “I HAVE nothing to tell you about myself, Amaury, so must be content with chatting to you about my good uncle, Madeleine, and yourself.

  “I saw Monsieur d’Avrigny yesterday, the first of October; as you will remember, it was arranged that we should see each other on the first of every month.

  “Of course I often hear of him through old Joseph, whom he frequently sends to Paris for news of me.

  “My uncle scarcely spoke to me, and the day passed silently between us; he seemed so absent, and I was afraid to annoy him by my presence — so I was obliged to content myself with looking at him stealthily.

  “He is changed — greatly changed, although to a casual observer it might not at first appear so. But his face is more deeply lined, his eyes less clear, his whole appearance careworn.

  “Alas! the two months of Madeleine’s illness had already aged him greatly.

  “When I arrived, he embraced me in his old loving way, and asked whether I had anything special to tell him about myself or my new life.

  “I told him no; that I had had but two letters from you, Amaury, and I asked him to read the last one, as it was filled with memories of Madeleine.

  “But he pushed it away with his hand, refusing to read it, although I pressed him to!

  “‘Yes! yes,’ he said as if to himself, ‘I already know all that he can say; he lives in the past as I do.

  “‘However, as I am thirty-five years older than he, I shall reach the goal first.’

  “After this, he did not say a single word, except on general subjects. Good Heavens! it alarms me to see him so self- absorbed, so estranged from the things of this world.

  “We dined together, but said nothing except a few common-places; our lips were mute, if our thoughts were active. I kissed him with tears in my eyes, then he saw me into the carriage, and Joseph escorted Miss Brown and me back to Paris, just as he had driven us out in the morning.

  “That was my whole interview with my uncle, dear Amaury, but when Joseph comes to Paris, I question him closely about his master. My uncle has not forbidden him to reply to me; he seems equally indifferent to everything now. Therefore I have a fair idea as to what he does, and how he lives.

  “Whatever the weather may be, he goes every morning into the cemetery, and, to use his own expression, wishes Madeleine good-morning. He remains there about an hour.

  “On his return, after breakfasting in about five minutes, for he only eats just sufficient to keep himself alive, he shuts himself up in his study, and takes out the diary, in which, since he reached the age of manhood, he has written each night the history of his life.

  “Now seeing that during all the eighteen years Madeleine lived, the life of the child was that of the father, he has never failed, when writing down his own doings, to chronicle also those of his beloved child. If she went out for a walk, and where she went; if she were at work, and what she was doing; if she said anything in particular, and what it was. He is therefore able to live over each day of the past. Five, ten, fifteen years ago to-day, she was here or there; we went to such a place together; we chatted about such and such a thing.

  “Thus gay, tender, and grave scenes of the past pass each in turn before him, and he listens, smiling or weeping, but he always ends by weeping, because the conclusion of all these memories is invariably the same; because, when he has reminded himself: ‘At five years old, she was so full of fun, at ten years so intelligent, at fifteen so full of grace,’ he must always come back to the sad fact, — ’ To-day, all this brightness, all this intelligence, all this grace have vanished; to-day, she is no more,’ and if a doubt arises in his mind whether all these charms can die, he has but to open his windows, and her grave is there before him.

  “And every hour of my poor uncle’s life is passed in this sad retrospection, — the source of countless emotions; he never retires to rest without going to wish Madeleine good-night, in the same way as he wishes her good-morning, Then he returns at ten or eleven o’clock at night, with roses from her grave, — he usually brings one white rose which he places in a Bohemian vase that used to be in Madeleine’s room, and keeps it beside him until the following morning.

  “They tell me, too, that he is often heard talking to his daughter’s picture, you remember the one, that charming portrait by Champmartin, which you have so often coveted.

  “Besides all this, he never opens a book, or a newspaper, or a parcel, or a letter; he receives no one and goes nowhere.

  “In fact he is dead to the whole world, and living only to her who is dead.

  “You now know as much as I do, Amaury, of what goes on in the house at Ville d’Auray; Madeleine is mourned all day and every day.

  “It is the same thing at the Rue d’Angoulême, where I am, and the same where you are.

  “Who could have known her for one single hour and not have mourned her.

  “I am therefore truly grateful to you, Amaury, for speaking of her to me, you who knew her even better than I. Always speak of her to me.

  “Even now when I dream of her, she seems like some celestial being appearing, in a dream. Was she not indeed an angel whom God lent us for awhile that we might follow in her footsteps? You were a witness of one of her good actions, Amaury; but I, her friend, I who was privileged to share them with her, know of a thousand others, and many of the poor love her dear name.

  “Once I only prayed to God, now I pray to God and to her.

  “Speak to me often of Madeleine Amaury, very often.

  “Tell me of yourself too. Ah! even to ask you this makes my hand tremble and my heart beat, for I fear lest I should offend or displease you! What shall I do if you think me guilty of curiosity or indiscretion I “Wounds like yours need a tender gentle touch; Madeleine, would have known how to write you such a letter as I now attempt to write; but where is there a second Madeleine?

  “I can only speak to you from the depth of my heart, and as an old and trusted friend.

  “Ah! if only I were really your sister? I would tell you, and you would have to listen to me.

  “Amaury, my dear brother, I certainly would not wish you to forget or be false to a sacred memory. I know that love can never come into your life again, that never more will your whole being thrill at the touch, or voice of a woman. Be therefore faithful to your beloved dead; it is only right, only fair, only loyal.

  “But if love be the best thing in the whole world, is it the only good? Are not science, art, and the government of men, duties with noble aims.

  “You are young, you are influential, do you not owe some duty to your fellow men? Were you to devote your life to charity, tell me, is not charity akin to love?

  “You have the wherewithal to bring happiness to many, you are rich; and as now, alas, your sister Antoinette is rich too, then are you not doubly so? I did not care at the time to grieve my uncle by a refusal, but my life now is too sad to permit me to link it with any other life. What better use can I make of this fortune than by confiding it to you, Amaury?