White Lies Part 51

"But I say she is. Is a doctor's eye keener than a mother's?"

"Considerably," replied the doctor with cool and enviable effrontery.

The baroness rose. "Now, children, for our evening walk. We shall enjoy it now."

"I trust you may: but for all that I must forbid the evening air to one of the party--to Madame Raynal."

The baroness came to him and whispered, "That is right. Thank you. See what is the matter with her, and tell me." And she carried off the rest of the party.

At the same time Jacintha asked permission to pa.s.s the rest of the evening with her relations in the village. But why that swift, quivering glance of intelligence between Jacintha and Rose de Beaurepaire when the baroness said, "Yes, certainly"?

Time will show.

Josephine and the doctor were left alone. Now Josephine had noticed the old people whisper and her mother glance her way, and the whole woman was on her guard. She a.s.sumed a languid complacency, and by way of shield, if necessary, took some work, and bent her eyes and apparently her attention on it.

The doctor was silent and ill at ease.

She saw he had something weighty on his mind. "The air would have done me no harm," said she.

"Neither will a few words with me."

"Oh, no, dear friend. Only I think I should have liked a little walk this evening."

"Josephine," said the doctor quietly, "when you were a child I saved your life."

"I have often heard my mother speak of it. I was choked by the croup, and you had the courage to lance my windpipe."

"Had I?" said the doctor, with a smile. He added gravely, "It seems then that to be cruel is sometimes kindness. It is the nature of men to love those whose life they save."

"And they love you."

"Well, our affection is not perfect. I don't know which is most to blame, but after all these years I have failed to inspire you with confidence." The doctor's voice was sad, and Josephine's bosom panted.

"Pray do not say so," she cried. "I would trust you with my life."

"But not with your secret."

"My secret! What secret? I have no secrets."

"Josephine, you have now for full twelve months suffered in body and mind, yet you have never come to me for counsel, for comfort, for an old man's experience and advice, nor even for medical aid."

"But, dear friend, I a.s.sure you"--

"We DO NOT deceive our friend. We CANNOT deceive our doctor."

Josephine trembled, but defended herself after the manner of her s.e.x.

"Dear doctor," said she, "I love you all the better for this. Your regard for me has for once blinded your science. I am not so robust as you have known me, but there is nothing serious the matter with me. Let us talk of something else. Besides, it is not interesting to talk about one's self."

"Very well; since there is nothing serious or interesting in your case, we will talk about something that is both serious and interesting."

"With all my heart;" and she smiled with a sense of relief.

But the doctor leaned over the table to her, and said in a cautious and most emphatic whisper, "We will talk about YOUR CHILD."

The work dropped from Josephine's hands: she turned her face wildly on Aubertin, and faltered out, "M--my child?"

"My words are plain," replied he gravely. "YOUR CHILD."

When the doctor repeated these words, when Josephine looking in his face saw he spoke from knowledge, however acquired, and not from guess, she glided down slowly off the sofa and clasped his knees as he stood before her, and hid her face in an agony of shame and terror on his knees.

"Forgive me," she sobbed. "Pray do not expose me! Do not destroy me."

"Unhappy young lady," said he, "did you think you had deceived me, or that you are fit to deceive any but the blind? Your face, your anguish after Colonel Dujardin's departure, your languor, and then your sudden robustness, your appet.i.te, your caprices, your strange sojourn at Frejus, your changed looks and loss of health on your return! Josephine, your old friend has pa.s.sed many an hour thinking of you, divining your folly, following your trouble step by step. Yet you never invited him to aid you."

Josephine faltered out a lame excuse. If she had revered him less she could have borne to confess to him. She added it would be a relief to her to confide in him.

"Then tell me all," said he.

She consented almost eagerly, and told him--nearly all. The old man was deeply affected. He murmured in a broken voice, "Your story is the story of your s.e.x, self-sacrifice, first to your mother, then to Camille, now to your husband."

"And he is well worthy of any sacrifice I can make," said Josephine.

"But oh, how hard it is to live!"

"I hope to make it less hard to you ere long," said the doctor quietly.

He then congratulated himself on having forced Josephine to confide in him. "For," said he, "you never needed an experienced friend more than at this moment. Your mother will not always be so blind as of late.

Edouard is suspicious. Jacintha is a shrewd young woman, and very inquisitive."

Josephine was not at the end of her concealments: she was ashamed to let him know she had made a confidant of Jacintha and not of him. She held her peace.

"Then," continued Aubertin, "there is the terrible chance of Raynal's return. But ere I take on me to advise you, what are your own plans?"

"I don't know," said Josephine helplessly.

"You--don't--know!" cried the doctor, looking at her in utter amazement.

"It is the answer of a mad woman, is it not? Doctor, I am little better.

My foot has slipped on the edge of a precipice. I close my eyes, and let myself glide down it. What will become of me?"

"All shall be well," said Aubertin, "provided you do not still love that man."

Josephine did not immediately reply: her thoughts turned inwards. The good doctor was proceeding to congratulate her on being cured of a fatal pa.s.sion, when she stopped him with wonder in her face. "Not love him!

How can I help loving him? I was his betrothed. I wronged him in my thoughts. War, prison, anguish, could not kill him; he loved me so. He struggled bleeding to my feet; and could I let him die, after all? Could I be crueller than prison, and torture, and despair?"

The doctor sighed deeply; but, arming himself with the necessary resolution, he sternly replied, "A woman of your name cannot vacillate between love and honor; such vacillations have but one end. I will not let you drift a moral wreck between pa.s.sion and virtue; and that is what it will come to if you hesitate now."

"Hesitate! Who can say I have hesitated where my honor was concerned?

You can read our bodies then, but not our hearts. What! you see me so pale, forlorn, and dead, and that does not tell you I have bid Camille farewell forever? That we might be safer still I have not even told him he is a father: was ever woman so cruel as I am? I have written him but one letter, and in that I must deceive him. I told him I thought I might one day be happy, if I could hear that he did not give way to despair. I told him we must never meet again in this world. So now come what will: show me my duty and I will do it. This endless deceit burns my heart.

Shall I tell my husband? It will be but one pang more, one blush more for me. But my mother!" and, thus appealed to, Dr. Aubertin felt, for the first time, all the difficulty of the situation he had undertaken to cure. He hesitated, he was embarra.s.sed.