was praying earnestly; faith gave to her figure an abandonment, a

prosternation, the attitude of some religious statue, which moved me
to the soul.

According to village custom, vespers were said soon after mass. Coming
out of church Madame de Chessel naturally proposed to her neighbors to

pass the intermediate time at Frapesle instead of crossing the Indre
and the meadows twice in the great heat. The offer was accepted.

Monsieur de Chessel gave his arm to the duchess, Madame de Chessel
took that of the count. I offered mine to the countess, and felt, for

the first time, that beautiful arm against my side. As we walked from
the church to Frapesle by the woods of Sache, where the light,

filtering down through the foliage, made those pretty patterns on the
path which seem like painted silk, such sensations of pride, such

ideas took possession of me that my heart beat violently.
"What is the matter?" she said, after walking a little way in a

silence I dared not break. "Your heart beats too fast--"
"I have heard of your good fortune," I replied, "and, like all others

who love truly, I am beset with vague fears. Will your new dignities
change you and lessen your friendship?"

"Change me!" she said; "oh, fie! Another such idea and I shall--not
despise you, but forget you forever."

I looked at her with an ecstasy which should have been contagious.
"We profit by the new laws which we have neither brought about nor

demanded," she said; "but we are neither place-hunters nor beggars;
besides, as you know very well, neither Monsieur de Mortsauf nor I can

leave Clochegourde. By my advice he has declined the command to which
his rank entitled him at the Maison Rouge. We are quite content that

my father should have the place. This forced modesty," she added with
some bitterness, "has already been of service to our son. The king, to

whose household my father is appointed, said very graciously that he
would show Jacques the favor we were not willing to accept. Jacques'

education, which must now be thought of, is already being discussed.
He will be the representative of two houses, the Lenoncourt and the

Mortsauf families. I can have no ambition except for him, and
therefore my anxieties seem to have increased. Not only must Jacques

live, but he must be made worthy of his name; two necessities which,
as you know, conflict. And then, later, what friend will keep him safe

for me in Paris, where all things are pitfalls for the soul and
dangers for the body? My friend," she said, in a broken voice, "who

could not see upon your brow and in your eyes that you are one who
will inhabit heights? Be some day the guardian and sponsor of our boy.

Go to Paris; if your father and brother will not second you, our
family, above all my mother, who has a genius for the management of

life, will help you. Profit by our influence; you will never be
without support in whatevercareer you choose; put the strength of

your desires into a noble ambition--"
"I understand you," I said, interrupting her; "ambition is to be my

mistress. I have no need of that to be wholly yours. No, I will not be
rewarded for my obedience here by receiving favors there. I will go; I

will make my own way; I will rise alone. From you I would accept
everything, from others nothing."

"Child!" she murmured, ill-concealing a smile of pleasure.
"Besides, I have taken my vows," I went on. "Thinking over our

situation I am resolved to bind myself to you by ties that never can
be broken."

She trembled slightly and stopped short to look at me.
"What do you mean?" she asked, letting the couples who preceded us

walk on, and keeping the children at her side.
"This," I said; "but first tell me frankly how you wish me to love

you."
"Love me as my aunt loved me; I gave you her rights when I permitted

you to call me by the name which she chose for her own among my
others."

"Then I am to love without hope and with an absolutedevotion. Well,
yes; I will do for you what some men do for God. I shall feel that you

have asked it. I will enter a seminary and make myself a priest, and
then I will educate your son. Jacques shall be myself in his own form;

political conceptions, thoughts, energy, patience, I will give him
all. In that way I shall live near to you, and my love, enclosed in

religion as a silver image in a crystalshrine, can never be suspected
of evil. You will not have to fear the undisciplined passions which

grasp a man and by which already I have allowed myself to be
vanquished. I will consume my own being in the flame, and I will love

you with a purified love."
She turned pale and said, hurrying her words: "Felix, do not put

yourself in bonds that might prove an obstacle to our happiness. I
should die of grief for having caused a suicide like that. Child, do

you think despairing love a life's vocation? Wait for life's trials
before you judge of life; I command it. Marry neither the Church nor a

woman; marry not at all,--I forbid it. Remain free. You are twenty-one
years old--My God! can I have mistaken him? I thought two months

sufficed to know some souls."
"What hope have you?" I cried, with fire in my eyes.

"My friend, accept our help, rise in life, make your way and your
fortune and you shall know my hope. And," she added, as if she were

whispering a secret, "never release the hand you are holding at this
moment."

She bent to my ear as she said these words which proved her deep
solicitude for my future.

"Madeleine!" I exclaimed "never!"
We were close to a wooden gate which opened into the park of Frapesle;

I still seem to see its ruined posts overgrown with climbing plants
and briers and mosses. Suddenly an idea, that of the count's death,

flashed through my brain, and I said, "I understand you."
"I am glad of it," she answered in a tone which made me know I had

supposed her capable of a thought that could never be hers.
Her purity drew tears of admiration from my eyes which the selfishness

of passion made bitter indeed. My mind reacted and I felt that she did
not love me enough even to wish for liberty. So long as love recoils

from a crime it seems to have its limits, and love should be infinite.
A spasm shook my heart.

"She does not love me," I thought.
To hide what was in my soul I stooped over Madeleine and kissed her

hair.
"I am afraid of your mother," I said to the countesspresently, to

renew the conversation.
"So am I," she answered with a gesture full of childlike gaiety.

"Don't forget to call her Madame la duchesse, and to speak to her in
the third person. The young people of the present day have lost these

polite manners; you must learn them; do that for my sake. Besides, it
is such good taste to respect women, no matter what their age may be,

and to recognize social distinctions without disputing them. The
respect shown to established superiority is guarantee for that which

is due to you. Solidarity is the basis of society. Cardinal Della
Rovere and Raffaelle were two powers equally revered. You have sucked

the milk of the Revolution in your academy and your political ideas
may be influenced by it; but as you advance in life you will find that

crude and ill-defined principles of liberty are powerless to create
the happiness of the people. Before considering, as a Lenoncourt, what

an aristocracy ought to be, my common-sense as a woman of the people
tells me that societies can exist only through a hierarchy. You are

now at a turning-point in your life, when you must choose wisely. Be
on our side,--especially now," she added, laughing, "when it

triumphs."
I was keenly touched by these words, in which the depth of her

political feeling mingled with the warmth of affection,--a combination
which gives to women so great a power of persuasion; they know how to

give to the keenest arguments a tone of feeling. In her desire to
justify all her husband's actions Henriette had foreseen the

criticisms that would rise in my mind as soon as I saw the servile
effects of a courtier's life upon him. Monsieur de Mortsauf, king in

his own castle and surrounded by an historic halo, had, to my eyes, a
certain grandiose dignity. I was therefore greatly astonished at the

distance he placed between the duchess and himself by manners that
were nothing less than obsequious. A slave has his pride and will only

serve the greatest despots. I confess I was humiliated at the
degradation of one before whom I trembled as the power that ruled my