This letter had
followed its predecessor after an interval of less than one week. What
did it mean? Good news or bad?
I opened the letter.
It enclosed a telegram, announcing that my poor dear father was lying
dangerously wounded at Marseilles. My sisters had already gone to him:
they implored me to follow them without one moment of needless delay. Is
it necessary to tell the story of this horrible calamity? Of course it
begins with a woman and an elopement. Of course it ends with a young man
and a duel. Have I not told you already?--Papa was so susceptible; Papa
was so brave. Oh, dear, dear! the old story over again. You have an
English proverb: "What is bred in the bone--" etcetera, etcetera. Let us
drop the veil. I mean, let us end the chapter.
CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST
A Hard Time for Madame Pratolungo
OUGHT I to have been prepared for the calamity which had now fallen on my
sisters and myself? If I had looked my own experience of my poor father
fairly in the face, would it not have been plain to me that the habits of
a life were not likely to be altered at the end of a life? Surely--if I
had exerted my intelligence--I might have foreseen that the longer his
reformation lasted, the nearer he was to a relapse, and the more
obviously probable it became that he would fail to fulfill the hopeful
expectations which I had cherished of his conduct in the future? I grant
it all.
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