SANTA; OR, A WOMAN’S TRAGEDY.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “AGNES TREMORNE,” &c.
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CHAPTER II.
I did not again meet Madame Rabenfels. She did not make her appearance the following week at Madame de L’s. I was restless and unhappy. A longing I could not control would take me to the door of her house, and then when I came in sight of it, a recoil equally strong would oblige me to leave it. I resolutely avoided Auguste. I did not confess to myself that I was in love. I only acknowledged the interest we all feel in one we have wronged and misjudged. I had besides a mystic feeling that our acquaintance would not terminate thus, that our fates were in some way connected. In many ways the name of Madame Rabenfels reached me, and generally with some disparaging remark. Sometimes, however, with enthusiastic praise. Some persons denied indignantly the truth of the reports about her, others in the most unqualified manner classed her with the many unfortunate women placed in an equivocal position from the mere fact of being separated from their husbands. Strangely enough, however, these allusions were to the past life: the present seemed ignored by all but Auguste.
I knew she continued her visits to the Rue du Puits. I often waited for her near her own house, or rather near the garden entrance. I felt happier when I had seen the door close upon her. She was safe. Yet was it torture to me. The hours I spent thus waiting for her were the bitterest of my life. Regret, jealousy, sorrow, compassion, agitated me by turns. I had also a sense through all of my own impotence to throw off the yoke which I bore, though it galled my very heart-strings, or to be of the slightest use or consolation to her whatever the grief she endured—and this was very hard to bear.
A week or two passed, and I began to realise through all this suffering the hold this affection had upon me.
One night, or rather morning, I was standing a few yards from her door. I saw her advancing with a slower step than usual. She paused for a moment and leaned against the door before opening it, as if giving herself time for thought, or to