There lie the dead corpses of those words on paper; but my art is powerless to tell you how they were uttered, those words, potent as a king's, for they saved a life.
They were a cry of terror and a cry of reproach and a cry of love unfathomable.
The weapon shook in his hand.He looked at her with growing astonishment and joy; she at him fixedly and anxiously, her hands clasped in supplication.
"As you used to love me?"
"More, far more.Give me the pistol.I love you, dearest.I love you."At these delicious words he lost all power of resistance, she saw;and her soft and supple hand stole in and closed upon his, and gently withdrew the weapon, and threw it into the water."Good Camille! now give me the other.""How do you know there is another?"
"I know you are not the man to kill a woman and spare yourself.
Come."
"Josephine, have pity on me, do not deceive me; pray do not take this, my only friend, from me, unless you really love me.""I love you; I adore you," was her reply.
She leaned her head on his shoulder, but with her hand she sought his, and even as she uttered those loving words she coaxed the weapon from his now unresisting grasp.
"There, it is gone; you are saved from death--saved from crime."And with that, the danger was over, she trembled for the first time, and fell to sobbing hysterically.
He threw himself at her knees, and embraced them again and again, and begged her forgiveness in a transport of remorse and self-reproach.
She looked down with tender pity on him, and heard his cries of penitence and shame.
"Rise, Camille, and go home with me," said she faintly.
"Yes, Josephine."
They went slowly and in silence.Camille was too ashamed and penitent to speak; too full of terror too at the abyss of crime from which he had been saved.The ancients feigned that a virgin could subdue a lion; perhaps they meant that a pure gentle nature can subdue a nature fierce but generous.Lion-like Camille walked by Josephine's side with his eyes bent on the ground, the picture of humility and penitence.
"This is the last walk you and I shall take together," said Josephine solemnly.
"I know it," said he humbly."I have forfeited all right to be by your side.""My poor, lost love," sighed Josephine, "will you never understand me? You never stood higher in my esteem than at this moment.It is the avowal you have forced from ME that parts us.The man to whom Ihave said 'I'--must not remain beneath my husband's roof.Does not your sense of honor agree with mine?""It does," faltered he.
"To-morrow you must leave the chateau."
"I will obey you."
"What, you do not resist, you do not break my heart by complaints, by reproaches?""No, Josephine, all is changed.I thought you unfeeling: I thought you were going to be HAPPY with him; that was what maddened me.""I pray daily YOU may be happy, no matter how.But you and I are not alike, dear as we are to one another.Well, do not fear: Ishall never be happy--will that soothe you, Camille?""Yes, Josephine, all is changed; the words you have spoken have driven the fiends out of my heart.I have nothing to do now but to obey, you to command: it is your right.Since you love me a little still, dispose of me.Bid me live: bid me die: bid me stay: bid me go.I shall never disobey the angel who loves me, my only friend upon the earth."A single deep sob from Josephine was all the answer.
Then he could not help asking her why she had not trusted him?
