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"Yes, certainly, we are going to the country to Madame George," said the housekeeper, to drive away every suspicion from the mind of Fleur-de-Marie; then she added, with malicious good nature, "But this is not all; before you see Madame George, a little surprise awaits you. Come, come, our hack is below. What delight you must feel at leaving this place, dear. Come, let us go. Your servant, sirs."
The early days of spring approached, the sun began to resume his power, the sky was pure, the air soft and mild. Fleur-de-Marie, leaning on the arm of La Louve, tried her strength by walking in Dr Griffon's garden.
"But there is not a moment to lose," said the marchioness. "I am dying with impatience to take you with me, Fleur-de-Marie; I have brought in my carriage a shawl and a warm cloak; come, come, my child." Then, addressing the count, she added, "Will your lordship be good enough to give my address to this courageous woman, so that she can come to-morrow and say farewell to Fleur-de-Marie?
"Hold!" resumed she; "there is the sun, is it not? there is the sun!" "Yes, Mont Saint Jean, I listen," answered Fleur-de-Marie, inclining her enchanting face toward the hideous visage of her companion. "You will laugh at me," answered she, sadly; "I want to speak, and I don't know how." "Say on, Mont Saint Jean."
"See," she continued, "here is her portrait." He seized the miniature. Yes, in the child's face were recognizable the blue eyes, the oval face, the fair hair, so familiar to him in Fleur-de-Marie. "God!" he cried, "you wretched woman! La Goualeuse our daughter! Found, only to lose her again. Dead!" "No, she lives, Rudolph. Pity! I die!" "Your child is dead, murdered.
They pursue me incessantly, no longer as formerly, in the midst of the peaceable inhabitants of a farm, or of the degraded women, my companions in Saint Lazare, but they pursue me even to this palace, peopled with the elite of Germany. They pursue me even to the arms of my father, even to the steps of his throne." Fleur-de-Marie melted into tears.
"So you love him," added Rudolph, taking his daughter's hands in his own, "you love him well, my dear child?" "Oh, if you knew," replied Fleur-de-Marie, "how much it has cost me to hide from you the sentiment as soon as I discovered it in my heart alas, at the least question from you, I should have owned everything. But shame restrained me, and would always have restrained me."
Fleur-de-Marie was not alarmed at these furious cries; she let the storm rage, but as soon as she could be heard, casting a calm and melancholy glance around her, she replied to La Louve, who vociferated anew, "Dare to repeat that we are cowards!" "You? no, no; it is this poor woman whose clothes you have torn, whom you have beaten, dragged in the mire, who is a coward!
"And, La Louve, where are your parents?" "Do you think I know!" "Is it a long time since you have seen them?" "I do not know if they are dead or alive." Fleur-de-Marie, although plunged very young into an atmosphere of corruption, had since respired an air so pure, that she experienced a painful oppression at the horrid story of La Louve.
When she knows that Fleur-de-Marie was my daughter, she will comprehend the grief that seeks to be alone yes, alone, so that it may be expiatory; and it is terrible, that expiation which fate imposes on me terrible! for it commences, for me, at the time when the decline of life also commences."
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