"The angel itself is not yet arrested in its fall. Go! let me hang suspended between the heaven that is shut against me, and the abyss whose depths I seek."
She burst into tears. André, after a silence, approached her.
"Paganina," said he, "do not weep. Come; see! the dawn already whitens the fields. Let the God of the morning comfort you. The wind rises forerunner of a new day. Bathe your forehead in its breath, and respire with its penetrating odors the forgetfulness of your sufferings. To-day, perhaps, will bring us back peace and happiness."
"No, to-day will be fatal. The beauty of the morning moves me no longer; for me the evening fires, the flames of the foot-lights, the _éclat_ of triumph. I will go from _fête_ to _fête_, from ovation to ovation. I want the whirlpool of the world to seize and carry me until I lose my health--and forget every thing. Immediately I set out for the Château Sarrasin."
"Ah! this, then," cried André with a sudden explosion of passion, "this, then, is the secret of your resistance and the avowal of your shame. The public cry that brought me here had already warned me. I refused to listen to it. Well, go; but fear every thing. You have roused in me a monster that I knew not of."
And raising his hands to heaven, the unhappy one fled.
Paganina was calumniated by her cousin; she was pure, though it is true she slid on a fatal declivity. Already appearances were against her reputation. André was deceived; but he was not the only one; and from thence the reports to which he had made allusion, and the pretext of which will be explained.
The Count Ludovic, proprietor of the Château Sarrasin and actual head of the house of the Ligonieri, inscribed in the golden book of European aristocracy, was a man of proud appearances, endowed with masculine beauty quite in accordance with his character; for he was superior to his race, and possessed many noble qualities.
His life was not without stain; but even his faults bore that chivalrous character that renders them honorable in the eyes of the world. We well know that the code of the world is not that of the saints.
And the Count Ludovic, who willingly mingled with the people of the theatre, had known Paganina while she was preparing for her _début_. At the first glance he had rightly judged the soul of the young artist, and saw her superior to her companions.
