"One word," continued Claire,--"one single word, would have enlightened
me. Why did you not pronounce it! It was with such happiness that I
leant on you as a child on its mother; and with what inward joy I said
to myself, 'I am sure of one friend, of one heart into which runs the
overflow of mine!' Ah! why was not my confidence greater? Why did I
withhold my secret from you? I might have avoided this fearful calamity.
I ought to have told you long since. I no longer belong to myself freely
and with happiness, I have given my life to another."
To hover in the clouds, and suddenly to fall rudely to the earth, such
was M. Daburon's fate; his sufferings are not to be described.
"Far better to have spoken," answered he; "yet no. I owe to your
silence, Claire, six months of delicious illusions, six months of
enchanting dreams. This shall be my share of life's happiness."
The last beams of closing day still enabled the magistrate to see
Mademoiselle d'Arlange. Her beautiful face had the whiteness and the
immobility of marble. Heavy tears rolled silently down her cheeks. It
seemed to M. Daburon that he was beholding the frightful spectacle of a
weeping statue.
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