From the doorway my eyes met hers, and I could not mistake their look of impatience and intense anxiety.I placed the little coffer on her bed and she instantly opened it, took out a packet of letters, then another, finally kept only one out, replaced those she had removed at first, locked the box, and signed to me to place it on the chest of drawers.While I was clearing away the things on the top of the drawers, to make a clear space for the box, Icaught sight, in the glass opposite to me, of the sick woman.By a great effort she had turned herself partly on her side, and she was trying to throw the packet of letters which she had retained into the fireplace; it was on the right of her bed, and only about a yard away from the foot.But she could hardly raise herself at all, the movement of her hand was too weak, and the little parcel fell on the floor.I hastened to her, to replace her head on the pillows and her body in the middle of the bed, and then, with her powerless arm she again began to make that terrible gesture of despair, clutching the sheet with her thin fingers, while tears streamed from her poor eyes.
Ah! how bitterly ashamed I am of what I am going to write in this place! I will write it, however, for I have sworn to myself that Iwill be true, even to the avowal of that fault, even to the avowal of a worse still.I had no difficulty in understanding what was passing in my aunt's mind; the little packet--it had fallen on the carpet close to the fender--evidently contained letters which she wished to destroy, so that I should not read them.She might have burned them, dreading as she did their fatal influence upon me, long since; yet I understood why she had shrunk from doing this, year after year, I, who knew with what idolatry she worshipped the smallest objects that had belonged to my father.Had I not seen her put away the blotting-book which he used when he came to Compiegne, with the paper and envelopes that were in it at his last visit?