'Farewell!' they all cried; 'farewell, farewell, dear child! Don't
forget your old friends. We shall pray for your happiness.' Alas!
God could not have heard their prayers. At a sign from M. de
Chalusse, a footman closed the door, the postilions cracked their
whips, and the heavy vehicle rolled away.
"The die was cast. Henceforth, an impassable gulf was to separate
me from this asylum, whither I had been carried in my infancy half
dead, and wrapped in swaddling clothes, from which every mark that
could possibly lead to identification had been carefully cut away.
Whatever my future might prove, I felt that my past was gone
forever. But I was too greatly agitated even to think; and
crouching in a corner of the carriage, I watched M. de Chalusse
with the poignant anxiety a slave displays as he studies his new
master. Ah! monsieur, what a wondrous change! A mask seemed to
have fallen from the count's face; his lips quivered, a tender
light beamed in his eyes, and he drew me to him, exclaiming: 'Oh,
Marguerite! my beloved Marguerite! At last--at last!' He sobbed--
this old man, whom I had thought as cold and as insensible as
marble; he crushed me in his close embrace, he almost smothered me
with kisses. And I was frightfully agitated by the strange,
indefinable feeling, kindled in my heart; but I no longer trembled
with fear. An inward voice whispered that this was but the
renewal of a former tie--one which had somehow been mysteriously
broken.
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