And as she stood a shiver shook her frame; in the
solitude of her lighted and luxurious chamber her cheek grew pale, her
eyes grew dim.
"To refute the charge," ran the last words of what was at best but a
fragment, "I must have broken my promise to you, and have compromised
your name. Keeping silence myself, but letting the trial take place,
law-inquiries so execrable and so minute, would soon have traced through
others that I was with you that evening. To clear myself I must have
attainted your name with public slander, and drawn the horrible ordeal
on you before the world. Let me be thought guilty. It matters little.
Henceforth I shall be dead to all who know me, and my ruin would have
exiled me without this. Do not let an hour of grief for me mar your
peace, my dearest; think of me with no pain, Beatrice; only with some
memory of our past love. I have not strength yet to say--forget me; and
yet,--if it be for your happiness,--blot out from your remembrance all
thought of what we have been to one another; all thought of me and of my
life, save to remember now and then that I was dear to you."
The words grew indistinct before her sight, they touched the heart of
the world-worn coquette, of the victorious sovereign, to the core;
she trembled greatly as she read them. For--in her hands was his fate.
Though no hint of this was breathed in his farewell letter, she knew
that with a word she could clear him, free him, and call him back from
exile and shame, give him once more honor and guiltlessness in the sight
of the world.
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