The Thirteen Part 40

She gazed at her.

"She is dead!" she said to herself, after a pause, in a violent reaction. "Dead! Oh, I shall die of grief!"

The Marquise was throwing herself upon the divan, stricken with a despair which deprived her of speech, when this movement brought her in view of Henri de Marsay.

"Who are you?" she asked, rus.h.i.+ng at him with her dagger raised.

Henri caught her arm, and thus they could contemplate each other face to face. A horrible surprise froze the blood in their veins, and their limbs quivered like those of frightened horses. In effect, the two Menoechmi had not been more alike. With one accord they uttered the same phrase:

"Lord Dudley must have been your father!"

The head of each was drooped in affirmation.

"She was true to the blood," said Henri, pointing to Paquita.

"She was as little guilty as it is possible to be," replied Margarita Euphemia Porraberil, and she threw herself upon the body of Paquita, giving vent to a cry of despair. "Poor child! Oh, if I could bring thee to life again! I was wrong--forgive me, Paquita! Dead! and I live! I--I am the most unhappy."

At that moment the horrible face of the mother of Paquita appeared.

"You are come to tell me that you never sold her to me to kill," cried the Marquise. "I know why you have left your lair. I will pay you twice over. Hold your peace."

She took a bag of gold from the ebony cabinet, and threw it contemptuously at the old woman's feet. The c.h.i.n.k of the gold was potent enough to excite a smile on the Georgian's impa.s.sive face.

"I come at the right moment for you, my sister," said Henri. "The law will ask of you----"

"Nothing," replied the Marquise. "One person alone might ask for a reckoning for the death of this girl. Cristemio is dead."

"And the mother," said Henri, pointing to the old woman. "Will you not always be in her power?"

"She comes from a country where women are not beings, but things--chattels, with which one does as one wills, which one buys, sells, and slays; in short, which one uses for one's caprices as you, here, use a piece of furniture. Besides, she has one pa.s.sion which dominates all the others, and which would have stifled her maternal love, even if she had loved her daughter, a pa.s.sion----"

"What?" Henri asked quickly, interrupting his sister.

"Play! G.o.d keep you from it," answered the Marquise.

"But whom have you," said Henri, looking at the girl of the golden eyes, "who will help you to remove the traces of this fantasy which the law would not overlook?"

"I have her mother," replied the Marquise, designating the Georgian, to whom she made a sign to remain.

"We shall meet again," said Henri, who was thinking anxiously of his friends and felt that it was time to leave.

"No, brother," she said, "we shall not meet again. I am going back to Spain to enter the Convent of _los Dolores_."

"You are too young yet, too lovely," said Henri, taking her in his arms and giving her a kiss.

"Good-bye," she said; "there is no consolation when you have lost that which has seemed to you the infinite."

A week later Paul de Manerville met De Marsay in the Tuileries, on the Terra.s.se de Feuillants.

"Well, what has become of our beautiful girl of the golden eyes, you rascal?"

"She is dead."

"What of?"

"Consumption."

PARIS, March 1834-April 1835.

ADDENDUM

Note: The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a trilogy.

Part one is ent.i.tled Ferragus and part two is The d.u.c.h.esse de Langeais. In other addendum references all three stories are usually combined under the t.i.tle The Thirteen.

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Bourignard, Gratien-Henri-Victor-Jean-Joseph Ferragus

Dudley, Lord The Lily of the Valley A Man of Business Another Study of Woman A Daughter of Eve

Manerville, Paul Francois-Joseph, Comte de The Ball at Sceaux Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Marriage Settlement

Marsay, Henri de Ferragus The d.u.c.h.esse of Langeais The Unconscious Humorists Another Study of Woman The Lily of the Valley Father Goriot Jealousies of a Country Town Ursule Mirouet A Marriage Settlement Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Letters of Two Brides The Ball at Sceaux Modeste Mignon The Secrets of a Princess The Gondreville Mystery A Daughter of Eve

Ronquerolles, Marquis de The Imaginary Mistress The Peasantry Ursule Mirouet A Woman of Thirty Another Study of Woman Ferragus The d.u.c.h.esse of Langeais The Member for Arcis