“One cannot break a promise made to the dying. I shall keep mine, even though my heart break. I shall do my duty. God will give me strength and courage. Forget her whom you loved. She is now the betrothed of another, and honor commands her to forget your very name. Once more, and for the last time, farewell! If you love me, you will not try to see me again. It would only add to my misery.
“Think as though she were dead--she who signs herself--MARGUERITE.”
The commonplace wording of this letter, and the mistakes in spelling that marred it, entirely escaped Pascal’s notice. He only understood one thing, that Marguerite was lost to him, and that she was on the point of becoming the wife of the vile scoundrel who had planned the snare which had ruined him at the Hotel d’Argeles. Breathless, despairing, and half crazed with rage, he sprang toward Madame Leon. “Marguerite, where is she?” he demanded, in a hoarse, unnatural voice; “I must see her!”
“Oh! monsieur, what do you ask? Is it possible? Allow me to explain to you----” But the housekeeper was unable to finish her sentence, for Pascal had caught her by the hands, and holding them in a vicelike grip, he repeated: “I must see Marguerite, and speak to her. I must tell her that she has been deceived; I will unmask the scoundrel who----”
The frightened housekeeper struggled with all her might, trying her best to reach the little gate which was standing open. “You hurt me!” she cried. “Are you mad? Let me go or I shall call for help?” And twice indeed she shouted in a loud voice, “Help! murder!”
But her cries were lost in the stillness of the night. If any one heard them, no one came; still they recalled Pascal to a sense of the situation, and he was ashamed of his violence. He released Madame Leon, and his manner suddenly became as humble as it had been threatening. “Excuse me,” he said, entreatingly. “I am suffering so much that I don’t know what I’m doing. I beseech you to take me to Mademoiselle Marguerite, or else run and beg her to come here. I ask but a moment.”
Madame Leon pretended to be listening attentively; but, in reality, she was quietly manoeuvring to gain the garden gate. Soon she succeeded in doing so, whereupon, with marvellous strength and agility, she pushed Pascal away, and sprang inside the garden, closing the gate after her, and saying as she did so, “Begone, you scoundrel!”