Honore de Balzac: A Woman of Thirty

5. V. TWO MEETINGS (continued)

The General could not trust himself to look at her. The stranger came nearer; there was something half-diabolical, half-divine in the smile that he gave Helene.

"Angel of pity, you that do not shrink in horror from a murderer, come, since you persist in your resolution of intrusting your life to me."

"Inconceivable!" cried her father.

The Marquise then looked strangely at her daughter, opened her arms, and Helene fled to her in tears.

"Farewell," she said, "farewell, mother!" The stranger trembled as Helene, undaunted, made sign to him that she was ready. She kissed her father's hand; and, as if performing a duty, gave a hasty kiss to Moina and little Abel, then she vanished with the murderer.

"Which way are they going?" exclaimed the General, listening to the footsteps of the two fugitives.--"Madame," he turned to his wife, "I think I must be dreaming; there is some mystery behind all this, I do not understand it; you must know what it means."

The Marquise shivered.

"For some time past your daughter has grown extraordinarily romantic and strangely high-flown in her ideas. In spite of the pains I have taken to combat these tendencies in her character--"

"This will not do----" began the General, but fancying that he heard footsteps in the garden, he broke off to fling open the window.

"Helene!" he shouted.

His voice was lost in the darkness like a vain prophecy. The utterance of that name, to which there should never be answer any more, acted like a counterspell; it broke the charm and set him free from the evil enchantment which lay upon him. It was as if some spirit passed over his face. He now saw clearly what had taken place, and cursed his incomprehensible weakness. A shiver of heat rushed from his heart to his head and feet; he became himself once more, terrible, thirsting for revenge. He raised a dreadful cry.