第418章

But, since our resolution is formed, let us act promptly.M.

de Morcerf went out about half an hour ago; the opportunity in favorable to avoid an explanation.""I am ready, my son," said Mercedes.Albert ran to fetch a carriage.He recollected that there was a small furnished house to let in the Rue de Saints Peres, where his mother would find a humble but decent lodging, and thither he intended conducting the countess.As the carriage stopped at the door, and Albert was alighting, a man approached and gave him a letter.Albert recognized the bearer."From the count," said Bertuccio.Albert took the letter, opened, and read it, then looked round for Bertuccio, but he was gone.

He returned to Mercedes with tears in his eyes and heaving breast, and without uttering a word he gave her the letter.

Mercedes read: --

Albert, -- While showing you that I have discovered your plans, I hope also to convince you of my delicacy.You are free, you leave the count's house, and you take your mother to your home; but reflect, Albert, you owe her more than your poor noble heart can pay her.Keep the struggle for yourself, bear all the suffering, but spare her the trial of poverty which must accompany your first efforts; for she deserves not even the shadow of the misfortune which has this day fallen on her, and providence is not willing that the innocent should suffer for the guilty.I know you are going to leave the Rue du Helder without taking anything with you.Do not seek to know how I discovered it; I know it -- that is sufficient.

Now, listen, Albert.Twenty-four years ago I returned, proud and joyful, to my country.I had a betrothed, Albert, a lovely girl whom I adored, and I was bringing to my betrothed a hundred and fifty louis, painfully amassed by ceaseless toil.This money was for her; I destined it for her, and, knowing the treachery of the sea I buried our treasure in the little garden of the house my father lived in at Marseilles, on the Allees de Meillan.Your mother, Albert, knows that poor house well.A short time since Ipassed through Marseilles, and went to see the old place, which revived so many painful recollections; and in the evening I took a spade and dug in the corner of the garden where I had concealed my treasure.The iron box was there --no one had touched it -- under a beautiful fig-tree my father had planted the day I was born, which overshadowed the spot.Well, Albert, this money, which was formerly designed to promote the comfort and tranquillity of the woman I adored, may now, through strange and painful circumstances, be devoted to the same purpose.Oh, feel for me, who could offer millions to that poor woman, but who return her only the piece of black bread forgotten under my poor roof since the day I was torn from her I loved.You are a generous man, Albert, but perhaps you may be blinded by pride or resentment; if you refuse me, if you ask another for what I have a right to offer you, I will say it is ungenerous of you to refuse the life of your mother at the hands of a man whose father was allowed by your father to die in all the horrors of poverty and despair.

Albert stood pale and motionless to hear what his mother would decide after she had finished reading this letter.

Mercedes turned her eyes with an ineffable look towards heaven."I accept it," said she; "he has a right to pay the dowry, which I shall take with me to some convent!" Putting the letter in her bosom, she took her son's arm, and with a firmer step than she even herself expected she went down-stairs.