She thought she was showing more nobility than her lover.
"But he will pack me off in disgrace."
"It is his right to do so, we must respect it.
I will give you my arm, and we will go out by the front door in full daylight."
Julien was thunderstruck and requested her to put it off for a week.
"I cannot," she answered, "it is the voice of honour, I have seen my duty, I must follow it, and follow it at once."
"Well, I order you to put it off," said Julien at last.
"Your honour is safe for the present. I am your husband.
The position of us will be changed by this momentous step.
I too am within my rights.
To-day is Tuesday, next Tuesday is the duke de Retz's at home; when M. de la Mole comes home in the evening the porter will give him the fatal letter. His only thought is to make you a duchess, I am sure of it. Think of his unhappiness."
"You mean, think of his vengeance?"
"It may be that I pity my benefactor, and am grieved at injuring him, but I do not fear, and shall never fear anyone."
Mathilde yielded.
This was the first occasion, since she had informed Julien of her condition, that he had spoken to her authoritatively. She had never loved him so much.
The tender part of his soul had found happiness in seizing on Mathilde's condition as an excuse for refraining from his cruel remarks to her.
The question of the confession to M. de la Mole deeply moved him.
Was he going to be separated from Mathilde?
And, however grieved she would be to see him go, would she have a thought for him after his departure?
He was almost equally horrified by the thought of the justified reproaches which the marquis might address to him.
In the evening he confessed to Mathilde the second reason for his anxiety, and then led away by his love, confessed the first as well.
She changed colour.
"Would it really make you unhappy," she said to him, "to pass six months far away from me?"
"Infinitely so. It is the only thing in the world which terrifies me."
Mathilde was very happy.
Julien had played his part so assiduously that he had succeeded in making her think that she was the one of the two who loved the more.
The fatal Tuesday arrived.
When the marquis came in at midnight he found a letter addressed to him, which was only to be opened himself when no one was there:—
"My father,
"All social ties have been broken between us, only those of nature remain.
Next to my husband, you are and always will be the being I shall always hold most dear.
My eyes are full of tears, I am thinking of the pain that I am causing you, but if my shame was to be prevented from becoming public, and you were to be given time to reflect and act, I could not postpone any longer the confession that I owe you.
If your affection for me, which I know is extremely deep, is good enough to grant me a small allowance, I will go and settle with my husband anywhere you like, in Switzerland, for instance.
His name is so obscure that no one would recognize in Madame Sorel, the daughter-in-law of a Verrieres carpenter, your daughter.
That is the name which I have so much difficulty in writing.
I fear your wrath against Julien, it seems so justified.
I shall not be a duchess, my father; but I knew it when I loved him; for I was the one who loved him first, it was I who seduced him.
I have inherited from you too lofty a soul to fix my attention on what either is or appears to be vulgar.
It is in vain that I thought of M. Croisenois with a view to pleasing you.
Why did you place real merit under my eyes?
You told me yourself on my return from Hyeres, 'that young Sorel is the one person who amuses me,' the poor boy is as grieved as I am if it is possible, at the pain this letter will give you.
I cannot prevent you being irritated as a father, but love me as a friend.
"Julien respected me.
If he sometimes spoke to me, it was only by reason of his deep gratitude towards yourself, for the natural dignity of his character induces him to keep to his official capacity in any answers he may make to anyone who is so much above him.
He has a keen and instinctive appreciation of the difference of social rank.
It was I (I confess it with a blush to my best friend, and I shall never make such a confession to anyone else) who clasped his arm one day in the garden.
"Why need you be irritated with him, after twenty-four hours have elapsed?
My own lapse is irreparable.
If you insist on it, the assurance of his profound respect and of his desperate grief at having displeased you, can be conveyed to you through me.
You need not see him at all, but I shall go and join him wherever he wishes.