The Last Rout

Sometimes in the heart of swamps, surrounded by chilling or fetid airs, a
flower blossoms, tender and fragrant as any rose of sunny Tours: such a
flower Margot had been. Thirty years; yet her face had lost to him not a
single detail; for there are some faces which print themselves so
indelibly upon the mind that they become not elusive like the memory of
an enhancing melody or an exquisite poem, but lasting, like the sense of
life itself. And Margot, daughter of his own miller--she had loved him
with all the strength and fervor of her simple peasant heart. And he?
Yes, yes; he could now see that he had loved her as deeply as it was
possible for a noble to love a peasant. And in a moment of rage and
jealousy and suspicion, he had struck her across the face with his
riding-whip.

What a recompense for such a love! In all the thirty years only once had
he heard from her: a letter, burning with love, stained and blurred with
tears, lofty with forgiveness, between the lines of which he could read
the quiet tragedy of an unimportant life. Whither had she gone, carrying
that brutal, unjust blow? Was she living? . . . dead? Was there such a
thing as a soul, and was the subtile force of hers compelling him to
regret true happiness for the dross he had accepted as such? Soul?
What! shall the atheist doubt in his old age?

For more than half an hour the marquis barred from his sight the scene
surrounding, and wandered in familiar green fields where a certain
mill-stream ran laughing to the sobbing sea; closed his ears to the
shouts of laughter and snatches of ribald song, to hear again the
nightingale, the stir of grasses under foot, the thrilling sweetness of
the voice he loved. When he recovered from his dream he was surprised to
find that he had caught the angle of his wife's eyes, those expressive
and following eyes which Rubens left to posterity; and he saw in them
something which was new-born: reproach.