A woman was standing in the recess. She took a step forward
into the room, and then--and then with a cry and a spring my arms were
round her, and hers round me, and I was standing like a man in a dream,
looking down into the sweet laughing eyes of my Eugenie. It was not
until I had kissed her and kissed her again upon her lips, her cheeks,
her hair, that I could persuade myself that she was indeed really there.
'Let us leave them,' said the voice of the Empress behind me. 'Come,
Napoleon. It makes me sad! It reminds me too much of the old days in
the Rue Chautereine.'
So there is an end of my little romance, for the Emperor's plans were,
as usual, carried out, and we were married upon the Thursday, as he had
said. That long and all-powerful arm had plucked her out from the
Kentish town, and had brought her across the Channel, in order to make
sure of my allegiance, and to strengthen the Court by the presence of a
de Choiseul. As to my cousin Sibylle, it shall be written some day how
she married the gallant Lieutenant Gerard many years afterwards, when he
had become the chief of a brigade, and one of the most noted cavalry
leaders in all the armies of France.
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