ntion. He fancied she must
have related details of her journey. Especially there must have been
mention, he thought, of her drive to the station from Tourdestelle;
and this flashed on him the scene of his ride to the chateau, and the
meeting her on the road, and the white light on the branching river, and
all that was Renee in the spirit of the place she had abandoned for him,
believing in him. She had proved that she believed in him. What in the
name of sanity had been the meaning of his language? and what was it
between them that arrested him and caused him to mumble absurdly of
'doing best,' when in fact he was her bondman, rejoiced to be so, by
his pledged word? and when she, for some reason that he was sure she had
stated, though he could recollect no more than the formless hideousness
of it, was debarred from returning to Tourdestelle?
He tossed in his bed as over a furnace, in the extremity of perplexity
of one accustomed to think himself ever demonstrably in the right, and
now with his whole nature in insurrection against that legitimate claim.
It led him to accuse her of a want of passionate warmth, in her not
having supplicated and upbraided him--not behaving theatrically, in
fine, as the ranting pen has made us expect of emergent ladies that they
will naturally do. Concerning himself, he thought commendingly, a tear
would have overcome him. She had not wept. The kaleidoscope was shaken
in his fragmentary mind, and she appeared thrice adorable for this noble
composure, he brutish.
Conscience and reason had resolved to a dead weight in him, like an
inanimate force, governing his acts despite the man, while he was
with Renee. Now his wishes and waverings conjured up a semblance of a
conscience and much reason to assure him that he had done foolishly as
well as unkindly, most unkindly: that he was even the ghastly spectacle
of a creature attempting to be more than he can be. Are we never to
embrace our inclinations? Are the laws regulating an old dry man like
his teacher and guide to be the same for the young and vigorous?
Is a good gift to be refused? And this was his first love! The brilliant
Renee, many-hued as a tropic bird! his lady of shining grace, with her
sole fault of want of courage devotedly amended! his pupil, he might
say, of whom he had foretold that she must come to such a pass, at the
same time prefixing his fidelity. And he was handing her over knowingly
to one kind of wretchedness--'son am
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