advance in life they grow healthier and stronger. And then, after all,
our home is improved and beautified, our means are improving also. Who

knows but Monsieur de Mortsauf's old age may be a blessing to me? Ah,
believe me! those who stand before the Great Judge with palms in their

hands, leading comforted to Him the beings who cursed their lives,
they, they have turned their sorrows into joy. If my sufferings bring

about the happiness of my family, are they sufferings at all?"
"Yes," I said, "they are; but they were necessary, as mine have been,

to make us understand the true flavor of the fruit that has ripened on
our rocks. Now, surely, we shall taste it together; surely we may

admire its wonders, the sweetness of affection it has poured into our
souls, that inward sap which revives the searing leaves--Good God! do

you not understand me?" I cried, falling into the mystical language to
which our religious training had accustomed us. "See the paths by

which we have approached each other; what magnet led us through that
ocean of bitterness to these springs of running water, flowing at the

foot of those hills above the shining sands and between their green
and flowerymeadows? Have we not followed the same star? We stand

before the cradle of a divine child whose joyous carol will renew the
world for us, teach us through happiness a love of life, give to our

nights their long-lost sleep, and to the days their gladness. What
hand is this that year by year has tied new cords between us? Are we

not more than brother and sister? That which heaven has joined we must
not keep asunder. The sufferings you reveal are the seeds scattered by

the sower for the harvest already ripening in the sunshine. Shall we
not gather it sheaf by sheaf? What strength is in me that I dare

address you thus! Answer, or I will never again recross that river!"
"You have spared me the word LOVE," she said, in a stern voice, "but

you have spoken of a sentiment of which I know nothing and which is
not permitted to me. You are a child; and again I pardon you, but for

the last time. Endeavor to understand, Monsieur, that my heart is, as
it were, intoxicated with motherhood. I love Monsieur de Mortsauf

neither from social duty nor from a calculated desire to win eternal
blessings, but from an irresistible feeling which fastens all the

fibres of my heart upon him. Was my marriage a mistake? My sympathy
for misfortune led to it. It is the part of women to heal the woes

caused by the march of events, to comfort those who rush into the
breach and return wounded. How shall I make you understand me? I have

felt a selfish pleasure in seeing that you amused him; is not that
pure motherhood? Did I not make you see by what I owned just now, the

THREE children to whom I am bound, to whom I shall never fail, on whom
I strive to shed a healing dew and the light of my own soul without

withdrawing or adulterating a single particle? Do not embitter the
mother's milk! though as a wife I am invulnerable, you must never

again speak thus to me. If you do not respect this command, simple as
it is, the door of this house will be closed to you. I believed in

pure friendship, in a voluntarybrotherhood, more real, I thought,
than the brotherhood of blood. I was mistaken. I wanted a friend who

was not a judge, a friend who would listen to me in those moments of
weakness when reproof is killing, a sacred friend from whom I should

have nothing to fear. Youth is noble, truthful, capable of sacrifice,
disinterested; seeing your persistency in coming to us, I believed,

yes, I will admit that I believed in some divine purpose; I thought I
should find a soul that would be mine, as the priest is the soul of

all; a heart in which to pour my troubles when they deluged mine, a
friend to hear my cries when if I continued to smother them they would

strangle me. Could I but have this friend, my life, so precious to
these children, might be prolonged until Jacques had grown to manhood.

But that is selfish! The Laura of Petrarch cannot be lived again. I
must die at my post, like a soldier, friendless. My confessor is

harsh, austere, and--my aunt is dead."
Two large tears filled her eyes, gleamed in the moonlight, and rolled

down her cheeks; but I stretched my hand in time to catch them, and I
drank them with an avidity excited by her words, by the thought of

those ten years of secret woe, of wasted feelings, of constant care,
of ceaseless dread--years of the lofty heroism of her sex. She looked

at me with gentle stupefaction.
"It is the first communion of love," I said. "Yes, I am now a sharer

of your sorrows. I am united to your soul as our souls are united to
Christ in the sacrament. To love, even without hope, is happiness. Ah!

what woman on earth could give me a joy equal to that of receiving
your tears! I accept the contract which must end in suffering to

myself. I give myself to you with no ulterior thought. I will be to
you that which you will me to be--"

She stopped me with a motion of her hand, and said in her deep voice,
"I consent to this agreement if you will promise never to tighten the

bonds which bind us together."
"Yes," I said; "but the less you grant the more evidence of possession

I ought to have."
"You begin by distrusting me," she replied, with an expression of

melancholy doubt.
"No, I speak from pure happiness. Listen; give me a name by which no

one calls you; a name to be ours only, like the feeling which unites
us."

"That is much to ask," she said, "but I will show you that I am not
petty. Monsieur de Mortsauf calls me Blanche. One only person, the one

I have most loved, my dear aunt, called me Henriette. I will be
Henriette once more, to you."

I took her hand and kissed it. She left it in mine with the
trustfulness that makes a woman so far superior to men; a trustfulness

that shames us. She was leaning on the brick balustrade and gazing at
the river.

"Are you not unwise, my friend, to rush at a bound to the extremes of
friendship? You have drained the cup, offered in all sincerity, at a

draught. It is true that a real feeling is never piecemeal; it must be
whole, or it does not exist. Monsieur de Mortsauf," she added after a

short silence, "is above all things loyal and brave. Perhaps for my
sake you will forget what he said to you to-day; if he has forgotten

it to-morrow, I will myself tell him what occurred. Do not come to
Clochegourde for a few days; he will respect you more if you do not.

On Sunday, after church, he will go to you. I know him; he will wish
to undo the wrong he did, and he will like you all the better for

treating him as a man who is responsible for his words and actions."
"Five days without seeing you, without hearing your voice!"

"Do not put such warmth into your manner of speaking to me," she said.
We walked twice round the terrace in silence. Then she said, in a tone

of command which proved to me that she had taken possession of my
soul, "It is late; we will part."

I wished to kiss her hand; she hesitated, then gave it to me, and said
in a voice of entreaty: "Never take it unless I give it to you; leave

me my freedom; if not, I shall be simply a thing of yours, and that
ought not to be."

"Adieu," I said.
I went out by the little gate of the lower terrace, which she opened

for me. Just as she was about to close it she opened it again and
offered me her hand, saying: "You have been truly good to me this

evening; you have comforted my whole future; take it, my friend, take
it."

I kissed her hand again and again, and when I raised my eyes I saw the
tears in hers. She returned to the upper terrace and I watched her for

a moment from the meadow. When I was on the road to Frapesle I again
saw her white robe shimmering in a moonbeam; then, a few moments

later, a light was in her bedroom.
"Oh, my Henriette!" I cried, "to you I pledge the purest love that

ever shone upon this earth."
I turned at every step as I regained Frapesle. Ineffable contentment

filled my mind. A way was open for the devotion that swells in all
youthful hearts and which in mine had been so long inert. Like the

priest who by one solemn step enters a new life, my vows were taken; I
was consecrated. A simple "Yes" had bound me to keep my love within my

soul and never to abuse our friendship by leading this woman step by
step to love. All noble feelings were awakened within me, and I heard

the murmur of their voices. Before confining myself within the narrow
walls of a room, I stopped beneath the azure heavens sown with stars,