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Updated: June 22, 2025
"Preposterous!" he gasped. "Impossible! Perfect folly!" "I love her, father, and have promised her never to marry another." "Then always remain a bachelor." "I shall marry her!" cried Gaston, excitedly. "I shall marry her because I have sworn I would, and I will not be so base as to desert her." "Nonsense!" "I tell you, Mlle. de la Verberie must and shall be my wife.
"Would there be difficulty in selling this ruin?" continued Louis. "That depends upon the price you ask, M. the marquis; I know a man who would purchase the property if he could get it cheap." "Who is he?" "M. Fougeroux, who lives on the other side of the river. He came from Beaucaire, and twelve years ago married a servant-maid of the late Countess de la Verberie.
Every evening during the winter these persons came to play an artless game of boston for centime points, to borrow the papers, or return those they had finished. When Monsieur and Madame Sechard had bought La Verberie, a fine house built of stone, and roofed with slate, the pleasure-grounds consisted of a garden of two acres.
Mme. de la Verberie, feeling that she could trust Mihonne, decided to take her along; but first made her sacredly promise eternal secrecy. It was in a little village near London that the countess, under the assumed name of Mrs. Wilson, took up her abode with her daughter and maid-servant.
With a frightened air she hobbled out to obey his orders, and in a few minutes returned with a bottle of wine and three glasses. Then she resumed her seat by the fire, and kept her eyes fastened upon the marquis. Could this really be the merry, pretty Mihonne, who had been the confidant of the little fairy of Verberie?
Time never hung heavy on his hands, except in mid-summer, when the valley of the Rhone was intensely hot; and even then he had infallible means of amusement, always new, though ever the same. He detested, above all, his neighbor the Countess de la Verberie.
Finally, one mild May evening, when Mme. de la Verberie had gone to Beaucaire, Gaston ventured into the park, and appeared before Valentine. She was not surprised or indignant. Genuine innocence displays none of the startled modesty assumed by conventional innocence. It never occurred to Valentine that she ought to bid Gaston to leave her.
Endowed with profound perspicacity, quickened by practice, he studied Valentine and her mother alternately; and the penetrating gaze which he fastened on the old countess so disconcerted her that she felt her wrinkled face turning very red. "This child is very ill," he abruptly said. Mme. de la Verberie made no reply. "I desire," continued the doctor, "to remain alone with her for a few minutes."
He had sworn that he would return before the end of three years, rich enough to satisfy the exactions of Mme. de la Verberie. How should he be able to keep this boastful promise? Stern reality had convinced him that his projects could never be realized, except by hard work and long waiting. What he hoped to accomplish in three years was likely to require a lifetime.
I am sure that my letters, added to the intercession of my brother Louis, will induce him to ask Mme. de la Verberie for your hand." This proposition seemed to frighten Valentine. "Heaven forbid that the marquis should take this rash step!" "Why, Valentine?"
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