D’Arthez naturally wrote, after a time, to tell your husband of the condition of his sister-in-law and her children, informing him, at the same time, of the generous intentions of the Indian Gaston towards his Paris brother, which an unhappy chance had frustrated.  Gaston, as you may imagine, hurried off to Paris.  Here is the first ride accounted for.  During the last five years he had saved fifty thousand francs out of the income you forced him to accept, and this sum he invested in the public funds under the names of his two nephews, securing them each, in this way, an income of twelve hundred francs.  Next he furnished his sister-in-law’s rooms, and promised her a quarterly allowance of three thousand francs.  Here you see the meaning of his dramatic labors and the pleasure caused him by the success of his first play.

Mme. Gaston, therefore, is no rival of yours, and has every right to your name.  A man of Gaston’s sensitive delicacy was bound to keep the affair secret from you, knowing as he did, your generous nature.  Nor does he look on what you give him as his own.  D’Arthez read me the letter he had from your husband, asking him to be one of the witnesses at his marriage.  Gaston in this declares that his happiness would have been perfect but for the one drawback of his poverty and indebtedness to you.  A virgin soul is at the mercy of such scruples.  Either they make themselves felt or they do not; and when they do, it is easy to imagine the conflict of feeling and embarrassment to which they give rise.  Nothing is more natural than Gaston’s wish to provide in secret a suitable maintenance for the woman who is his brother’s widow, and who had herself set aside one hundred thousand francs for him from her own fortune.  She is a handsome woman, warm-hearted, and extremely well-bred, but not clever.  She is a mother; and, you may be sure, I lost my heart to her at first sight when I found her with one child in her arms, and the other dressed like a little lord.  The children first! is written in every detail of her house.

Far from being angry, therefore, with your beloved husband, you should find in all this fresh reason for loving him.  I have met him, and think him the most delightful young fellow in Paris.  Yes! dear child, when I saw him, I had no difficulty in understanding that a woman might lose her head about him; his soul is mirrored in his countenance.  If I were you, I should settle the widow and her children at the chalet, in a pretty little cottage which you could have built for them, and adopt the boys!

Be at peace, then, dear soul, and plan this little surprise, in your turn, for Gaston.

LVI

MME. GASTON TO THE COMTESSE DE L’ESTORADE

Ah! my dear friend, what can I say in answer except the cruel "It is too late" of that fool Lafayette to his royal master?  Oh! my life, my sweet life, what physician will give it back to me.  My own hand has dealt the deathblow.  Alas! have I not been a mere will-o’-the-wisp, whose twinkling spark was fated to perish before it reached a flame?  My eyes rain torrents of tears—­and yet they must not fall when I am with him.  I fly to him, and he seeks me.  My despair is all within.  This torture Dante forgot to place in his Inferno. Come to see me die!