Chapter XLI

[In which Henry Gastonard receives a summons from the Marquis de Saint Faur.]

Château of Bougival,
November 8th, 1905.

Dear Mr. Gastonard,--The obligation of silence which recent events have imposed upon me is the more deserving of apology as it is the less possible of explanation.

May I beg of you to believe that all which has been done, or contemplated, is such as would appeal to any man of honour, and particularly to one who has shown such gifts of prudence and self-restraint as you have done these latter days?

The story of Madame Gastonard’s infancy is not one which may be written circumstantially even for you, Monsieur. But the pages which are missing will be supplied by your knowledge and experience of the world and of men, and will not be regretted because of that knowledge. Great names are implicated, and particularly the name of a noble woman, who has suffered much, and yet must suffer. I beg you, in the name of womanhood, to bear this fact in mind from the beginning.

For the rest, I am content that your judgment shall decide what is to be told to the world and what concealed. The rest is your own--an inheritance of a destiny once decreed and irrevocable.

Do me the honour, I beg of you, to come to the Château de Bougival without delay, there to hear from Madame Gastonard’s own lips both the story of these recent days as she alone may tell it, and that other story, which will be told for the first time to any man by, Yours, with cordial esteem,

Gaspard de Saint Faur.