This charming state of things came to an end at length in a somewhat
curious manner. One night, before we had been a month in the hotel,
I was lying wide awake in bed. It was late; I had already heard the
mournful, long-drawn voice of the watchman under my window calling
out, "Half-past one and cloudy."
Gil Blas relates in his biography that one night while lying awake he
fell into practising a little introspection, an unusual thing for him
to do, and the conclusion he came to was that he was not a very good
young man. I was having a somewhat similar experience that night when
in the midst of my unflattering thoughts about myself, a profound sigh
from Paquita made me aware that she too was lying wide awake and also,
in all probability, chewing the cud of reflection. When I questioned
her concerning that sigh, she endeavoured in vain to conceal from me
that she was beginning to feel unhappy. What a rude shock the discovery
gave me! And we so lately married! It is only just to Paquita, however,
to say that had I not married her she would have been still more
unhappy. Only the poor child could not help thinking of father and
mother; she yearned for reconciliation, and her present sorrow rose
from her belief that they would never, never, never forgive her. I
endeavoured, with all the eloquence I was capable of, to dispel these
gloomy ideas, but she was firm in her conviction that precisely because
they had loved her so much they would never pardon this first great
offence.
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