After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for Eugenie with
frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought of following her cousin.
Those who have known that most endearing of all passions,--the one
whose duration is each day shortened by time, by age, by mortal
illness, by human chances and fatalities,--they will understand the
poor girl's tortures. She wept as she walked in the garden, now so
narrow to her, as indeed the court, the house, the town all seemed.
She launched in thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was
about to traverse. At last the eve of his departure came. That
morning, in the absence of Grandet and of Nanon, the precious case
which contained the two portraits was solemnly installed in the only
drawer of the old cabinet which could be locked, where the now empty
velvet purse was lying. This deposit was not made without a goodly
number of tears and kisses. When Eugenie placed the key within her
bosom she had no courage to forbid the kiss with which Charles sealed
the act.
"It shall never leave that place, my friend," she said.
"Then my heart will be always there."
"Ah! Charles, it is not right," she said, as though she blamed him.
"Are we not married?" he said. "I have thy promise,--then take mine."
"Thine; I am thine forever!" they each said, repeating the words twice
over.
No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. The innocent sincerity
of Eugenie had sanctified for a moment the young man's love.
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