Assuming all the risks of an enterprise which amounted to thirty thousand francs, a stroke of ill-fortune left him nothing to look forward to but a debtor's prison, which yawned before him.
It was at this moment that his meeting with Louise de Chaulieu took place.During the nine months that preceded their marriage, Marie-Gaston's letters to his friend became fewer and far-between.Dorlange ought surely to have been the first to know of this change in the life of his friend, but not one word of it was confided to him.This was exacted by the high and mighty lady of Gaston's love, Louise de Chaulieu, Baronne de Macumer.
When the time for the marriage came, Madame de Macumer pushed this mania for secrecy to extremes.I, her nearest and dearest friend, was scarcely informed of the event, and no one was admitted to the ceremony except the witnesses required by law.Dorlange was still absent.The correspondence between them ceased, and if Marie-Gaston had entered the convent of La Trappe, he could not have been more completely lost to his friend.
When Dorlange returned from Rome in 1836, the sequestration of Marie-Gaston's person and affection was more than ever close and inexorable.
Dorlange had too much self-respect to endeavor to pass the barriers thus opposed to him, and the old friends not only never saw each other, but no communication passed between them.
But when the news of Madame Marie-Gaston's death reached him Dorlange forgot all and hastened to Ville d'Avray to comfort his friend.
Useless eagerness! Two hours after that sad funeral was over, Marie-Gaston, without a thought for his friends or for a sister-in-law and two nephews who were dependent on him, flung himself into a post-chaise and started for Italy.Dorlange felt that this egotism of sorrow filled the measure of the wrong already done to him; and he endeavored to efface from his heart even the recollection of a friendship which sympathy under misfortune could not recall.
My husband and I loved Louise de Chaulieu too tenderly not to continue our affection for the man who had been so much to her.Before leaving France, Marie-Gaston had requested Monsieur de l'Estorade to take charge of his affairs, and later he sent him a power-of-attorney to enable him to do so properly.
Some weeks ago his grief, still living and active, suggested to him a singular idea.In the midst of the beautiful park at Ville d'Avray is a little lake, with an island upon it which Louise dearly loved.To that island, a shady calm retreat, Marie-Gaston wished to remove the body of his wife, after building a mausoleum of Carrara marble to receive it.He wrote to us to communicate this idea, and, remembering Dorlange in this connection, he requested my husband to see him and ask him to undertake the work.At first Dorlange feigned not to remember even the name of Marie-Gaston, and he made some civil pretext to decline the commission.But see and admire the consistency of such determinations when people love each other! That very evening, being at the opera, he heard the Duc de Rhetore speak insultingly of his former friend, and he vehemently resented the duke's words.A duel followed in which he was wounded; the news of this affair has probably already reached you.So here is a man facing death at night for a friend whose very name he pretended not to know in the morning!
You will ask, my dear Madame de Camps, what this long tale has to do with my own ridiculous adventure.That is what I would tell you now if my letter were not so immoderately long.I told you my tale would prove to be a feuilleton-story, and I think the moment has come to make the customary break in it.I hope I have not sufficiently exalted your curiosity to have the right not to satisfy it.To be concluded, therefore, whether you like it or not, in the following number.