May she find
happiness in the connection she has accepted.'
'Stay, sir,' I said. 'What has she accepted? What have you heard?'
He answered with a paler look and strange smile that his clerk had
been desired by M. de Poligny's notary to let him see the parchments
of the Ribaumont estate, preparatory to drawing up the contract of
marriage, to be ready to be signed in a week's time.'
'Ah, sir,' I said, 'you are a lawyer, and should know how to trust to
such evidence. The contract is impossible without my brother, who is
too ill to hear of it, and my sister has uttered no word of consent,
nor will she, even though she should remain unmarried for life.'
'Will she forgive me?' he exclaimed, as though ready to throw himself
at my feet.
I told him that he must find out for himself, and he returned that I
was an angel from heaven. On the whole I felt more like a weak and
talkative woman, a traitress to my mother; but then, as I looked at
him, there was such depth of wounded affection, such worth and
superiority to all the men I was in the habit of seeing, that it was
impossible not to feel that if Annora had any right to choose at all
she had chosen worthily.
But I thought of my mother, and would not commit myself further, and
I rose to leave him; I had, however, waited too long. The mob were
surging along the streets, as they always did when the magistrates
came home from the Parliament, howling, bellowing, and yelling round
the unpopular ones.
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