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“You do not know what love is!” he burst forth, stung into swift resentment.

A quick sob broke from her.

“Yes I do.” she answered. “I–I have seen it”

“You mean M. Villefort!” he cried in desperate jealous misery. “You think that he—-“

She pointed to the scattered fragments of the letter.

“He had that in his pocket when he fell,” she said, “He thought that I had read it. If I had been your wife, and you had thought so, would you have thought that I was worth trying to save–as he tried to save me?”

“What!” he exclaimed, shamefacedly. “Has he seen it?”

“Yes,” she answered, with another sob, which might have been an echo of the first. “And that is the worst of all.”

There was a pause, during which he looked down at the floor, and even trembled a little.

“I have done you more wrong than I thought,” he said.

“Yes,” she replied; “a thousand-fold more.”

It seemed as if there might have been more to say, but it was not said.

In a little while he roused himself with an effort.

“I am not a villain!” he said. “I can do one thing. I can go to Villefort–if you care.”

She did not speak. So he moved slowly away until he reached the door. With his hand upon the handle he turned and looked back at her.

“Oh, it is good-bye–good-bye!” he almost groaned.

“Yes.”

He could not help it–few men could have done so. His expression was almost fierce as he spoke his next words.

“And you will love him–yes, you will love him.”

“No,” she answered, with bitter pain. “I am not worthy.”

*****

It was a year or more before the Villeforts were seen in Paris again, and Jenny enjoyed her wanderings with them wondrously. In fact, she was the leading member of the party. She took them where she chose,–to queer places, to ugly places, to impossible places, but never from first to last to any place where there were not, or at least had not been, Americans as absurdly erratic as themselves.

The winter before their return they were at Genoa, among other places; and it was at Genoa that one morning, on opening a drawer, Bertha came upon an oblong box, the sight of which made her start backward and put her hand to her beating side. M. Villefort approached her hurriedly. An instant later, however, he started also and shut the drawer.

“Come away,” he said, taking her hand gently. “Do not remain here.”

But he was pale, too, and his hand was unsteady. He led her to the window and made her sit down.

“Pardon me,” he said. “I should not have left them there.”

“You did not send them to your friend?” she faltered.

“No.”

He stood for a moment or so, and looked out of the window at the blue sea which melted into the blue sky, at the blue sky which bent itself into the blue sea, at the white sails flecking the deep azure, at the waves hurrying in to break upon the sand.

“That”–he said at length, tremulously, and with pale lips–“that was false.”

“Was false!” she echoed.

“Yes,” hoarsely, “it was false. There was no such friend. It was a lie–they were meant only for myself.”

She uttered a low cry of anguish and dread.

“Ah, mon Dieu!” he said. “You could not know. I understood all, and had been silent. I was nothing–a jest–‘le Monsieur de la petite Dame,’ as they said,–only that. I swore that I would save you. When I bade you adieu that night, I thought it was my last farewell. There was no accident. Yes–there was one. I did not die, as I had intended. My hand was not steady enough. And since then—-“

She rose up, crying out to him as she had done on that terrible night–

“Arthur! Arthur!”

He came closer to her.

“Is it true,” he said,–“is it true that my prayers have not been in vain? Is it true that at last–at last, you have learned–have learned—-“

She stretched forth her arms to him.

“It is true!” she cried. “Yes, it is true!–it is true!”