Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

Marguerite seemed to be thinking, for she answered nothing. My heart

beat violently while I waited for her reply.

"No," she answered, "I will not leave Armand, and I will not conceal the

fact that I am living with him. It is folly no doubt, but I love him.

What would you have me do? And then, now that he has got accustomed to

be always with me, he would suffer too cruelly if he had to leave me so

much as an hour a day. Besides, I have not such a long time to live that

I need make myself miserable in order to please an old man whose very

sight makes me feel old. Let him keep his money; I will do without it."

"But what will you do?"

"I don't in the least know."

Prudence was no doubt going to make some reply, but I entered suddenly

and flung myself at Marguerite's feet, covering her hands with tears in

my joy at being thus loved.

"My life is yours, Marguerite; you need this man no longer. Am I not

here? Shall I ever leave you, and can I ever repay you for the happiness

that you give me? No more barriers, my Marguerite; we love; what matters

all the rest?"

"Oh yes, I love you, my Armand," she murmured, putting her two arms

around my neck. "I love you as I never thought I should ever love. We

will be happy; we will live quietly, and I will say good-bye forever to

the life for which I now blush. You won't ever reproach me for the past?

Tell me!"

Tears choked my voice. I could only reply by clasping Marguerite to my

heart.

"Well," said she, turning to Prudence, and speaking in a broken voice,

"you can report this scene to the duke, and you can add that we have no

longer need of him."

From that day forth the duke was never referred to. Marguerite was no

longer the same woman that I had known. She avoided everything that

might recall to me the life which she had been leading when I first

met her. Never did wife or sister surround husband or brother with

such loving care as she had for me. Her nature was morbidly open to all

impressions and accessible to all sentiments. She had broken equally

with her friends and with her ways, with her words and with her

extravagances. Any one who had seen us leaving the house to go on the

river in the charming little boat which I had bought would never have

believed that the woman dressed in white, wearing a straw hat, and

carrying on her arm a little silk pelisse to protect her against the

damp of the river, was that Marguerite Gautier who, only four months

ago, had been the talk of the town for the luxury and scandal of her

existence.