In the silence of long nights the sisters
exchanged many a confidence. With what dramatic interest was poor
Bettina invested in the eyes of the innocent Modeste? Bettina knew
love through sorrow only, and she was dying of it. Among young girls
every man, scoundrel though he be, is still a lover. Passion is the
one thing absolutely real in the things of life, and it insists on its
supremacy. Charles d'Estourny, gambler, criminal, and debauchee,
remained in the memory of the sisters, the elegant Parisian of the
fetes of Havre, the admired of the womenkind. Bettina believed she had
carried him off from the coquettish Madame Vilquin, and to Modeste he
was her sister's happy lover. Such adoration in young girls is
stronger than all social condemnations. To Bettina's thinking, justice
had been deceived; if not, how could it have sentenced a man who had
loved her for six months?--loved her to distraction in the hidden
retreat to which he had taken her,--that he might, we may add, be at
liberty to go his own way. Thus the dying girl inoculated her sister
with love. Together they talked of the great drama which imagination
enhances; and Bettina carried with her to the grave her sister's
ignorance, leaving her, if not informed, at least thirsting for
information.
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