The Argosy — page 384: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Cureé’s Sister. 361 happened. But beyond the distant sound of servants busy with their work, all in the chateau was still ; so flinging off the chill that lay upon me, I dressed, and sauntered into the garden. I went down to the fountain, and thought how strangely fitting an emblem it was of Léonie’s withered life, and Madame de St. Erme’s barren and wasted youth. But asI mused, a piercing shriek rose up to the morning sky, and filled with terror at the scund, I rushed back to the house. I met haggard faces and cries of woe on every side. «She is dead! She is dead!” they whispered to each other. Scarcely knowing what I did, I followed the throng, and found my- self at the threshold of Léonie’s chamber. ‘The door had been burst open, and the fumes of charcoal filled the air. Léonie lay on her bed, dressed as I had seen her the night before, but she was dead, and the white veil and wreath above her pale face, looked a ghastly mockery. Madame de St. Erme knelt by the bedside, convulsed with grief, the Count and her stepson leaning over her. ‘The bridegroom’s face was white as his dead bride’s, but he uttered no word either of sorrow or of comfort; so not a sound broke the stillness of death in that chamber, save the low sobs of women. A pan of charcoal, still glowing with white heat, stood on the closed stove. There was no need to ask questions ; this told me all. And, sick at heart, I went back to my room and read Léonie’s letter. ‘* DEAR FRIEND,—You have known me three years, and you, and you only, have guessed my secret. You are a Protestant. To you it will not seem so terrible, so wicked, that I, who know all his goodness, should love him. In your eyes my sin is not sacrilege, not past re- pentance, as it would seem, to /zm and to his mother ; therefore it 1s, that I do not shrink from letting you see this blot in my soul. But Spare me in their memory ; do not let them pluck me out of their hearts, as one who lived among them as a leper, hiding her leprosy. Through what anguish and bitterness I have hidden my wicked love from their sight, my own soul alone can say. But I was very content, very happy as his sister ; no thought that I loved him better than a sister startled me, till my real mother told me of my birth. ‘Then I felt more clearly that I was not his sister, and foreseeing that we should be separated by a thousand barriers that rank and wealth make, I endured such torture, that my heart awoke to the truth. To be parted for ever ; to see his face no more; to be neither sister nor friend to him, but a stranger; this is what the future offered me, and I rebelled against it. I clung to my cottage home, as we cling to life. But all things were a torture to me now. Oh, if my mother had left me in blindness, I should have lived on peacefully as his sister to the end ; but now that I £zew the terrible secret of my own heart, I was ever at war with myself. At last I felt that I ought to spare them the sorrow of my presence, and about this time, my father offered me a noble CONNICMOOOKSs.E®