But I never knew that blessed feeling until I met Raoul du
Laurier. It was a heavenly rest now to lay my head for a minute on his
shoulder, just shutting my eyes, without speaking a word.
I thought--for I was worn out, body and soul, with the strain of keeping
up and hiding my secret--that when I was dead the best paradise would be
to lean so on Raoul's shoulder, never moving, for the first two or three
hundred years of eternity. But as the peaceful fancy cooled my brain,
back darted remembrance, like a poisonous snake. I reminded myself how
little I deserved such a paradise, and how my lover's dear arms would
put me away, in a kind of unbelieving horror, if he knew what I had
done, and how I had betrayed his trust in me.
For ten years I'd been a political spy--yes. But I owed a grudge to
Russia, which I'd promised my father to pay: and France is Russia's
ally. Besides, it seems less vile to betray a country than to deceive a
man you adore, who adores you in return. We women are true as truth
itself to those we love. For them we would sacrifice the greatest cause.
Always I had known this, and I had thought that I could prove myself
truer than the truest, if I ever loved.
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