Victor Hugo - The Man Who Laughs - Cosmopolitan University 2

ut it was over. Dea alone remained.
Gwynplaine would have been much astonished had any one told him that Dea
had ever been, even for a moment, in danger; and in a week or two the
phantom which had threatened the hearts of both their souls faded away.
Within Gwynplaine nothing remained but the heart, which was the hearth,
and the love, which was its fire.
Besides, we have just said that "the duchess" did not return.
Ursus thought it all very natural. "The lady with the gold piece" is a
phenomenon. She enters, pays, and vanishes. It would be too much joy
were she to return.
As to Dea, she made no allusion to the woman who had come and passed
away. She listened, perhaps, and was sufficiently enlightened by the
sighs of Ursus, and now and then by some significant exclamation, such
as,--
"_One does not get ounces of gold every day!_"
She spoke no more of the "woman." This showed deep instinct. The soul
takes obscure precautions, in the secrets of which it is not always
admitted itself. To keep silence about any one seems to keep them afar
off. One fears that questions may call them back. We put silence between
us, as if we were shutting a door.
So the incident fell into oblivion.
Was it ever anything? Had it ever occurred? Could it be said that a
shadow had floated between Gwynplaine and Dea? Dea did not know of it,
nor Gwynplaine either. No; nothing had occurred. The duchess herself was
blurred in the distant perspective like an illusion. It had been but a
momentary dream passing over Gwynplaine, out of which he had awakened.
When it fades away, a reverie, like a mist, leaves no trace behind; and
when the cloud has passed on, love shines out as brightly in the heart
as the sun in the sky.
CHAPTER IX.
ABYSSUS ABYSSUM VOCAT.
Another face, disappeared--Tom-Jim-Jack's. Suddenly he ceased to
frequent the Tadcaster Inn.
Persons so situated as to be able to observe other phases of fashionable
life in London, might have seen that about this time the _Weekly
Gazette_, between two extracts from parish registers, announced the
departure of Lord David Dirry-Moir, by order of her Majesty, to take
command of his frigate in the white squadron then cruising off the coast
of Holland.