The answer that came was brief:
"My own Desiree: Come home to Valmonde; back to your mother who loves
you. Come with your child."
When the letter reached Desiree she went with it to her husband's study,
and laid it open upon the desk before which he sat. She was like a stone
image: silent, white, motionless after she placed it there.
In silence he ran his cold eyes over the written words.
He said nothing. "Shall I go, Armand?" she asked in tones sharp with
agonized suspense.
"Yes, go."
"Do you want me to go?"
"Yes, I want you to go."
He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him; and
felt, somehow, that he was paying Him back in kind when he stabbed thus
into his wife's soul. Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the
unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name.
She turned away like one stunned by a blow, and walked slowly towards
the door, hoping he would call her back.
"Good-by, Armand," she moaned.
He did not answer her. That was his last blow at fate.
Desiree went in search of her child. Zandrine was pacing the sombre
gallery with it. She took the little one from the nurse's arms with no
word of explanation, and descending the steps, walked away, under the
live-oak branches.
It was an October afternoon; the sun was just sinking. Out in the still
fields the negroes were picking cotton.
Desiree had not changed the thin white garment nor the slippers which
she wore. Her hair was uncovered and the sun's rays brought a golden
gleam from its brown meshes. She did not take the broad, beaten road
which led to the far-off plantation of Valmonde. She walked across a
deserted field, where the stubble bruised her tender feet, so delicately
shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds.
She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the
banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again.
Some weeks later there was a curious scene enacted at L'Abri. In the
centre of the smoothly swept back yard was a great bonfire. Armand
Aubigny sat in the wide hallway that commanded a view of the spectacle;
and it was he who dealt out to a half dozen negroes the material which
kept this fire ablaze.
A graceful cradle of willow, with all its dainty furbishings, was
laid upon the pyre, which had already been fed with the richness of a
priceless layette. Then there were silk gowns, and velvet and satin ones
added to these; laces, too, and embroideries; bonnets and gloves; for
the corbeille had been of rare quality.