"With your letter on my heart, Helene, I think I can run no danger; but what have you to tell me? You have been crying!"
"Alas, since this morning I have done little else."
"Since this morning," said Gaston, with a sad smile, "that is strange; if I were not a man, I too should have cried since this morning."
"What do you say, Gaston?"
"Nothing, nothing; tell me, what are your griefs, Helene?"
"Alas! you know I am not my own mistress. I am a poor orphan, brought up here, having no other world than the convent. I have never seen any one to whom I can give the names of father or mother—my mother I believe to be dead, and my father is absent; I depend upon an invisible power, revealed only to our superior. This morning the good mother sent for me, and announced, with tears in her eyes, that I was to leave."
"To leave the convent, Helene?"
"Yes; my family reclaims me, Gaston."
"Your family? Alas! what new misfortune awaits us?"
"Yes, it is a misfortune, Gaston. Our good mother at first congratulated me, as if it were a pleasure; but I was happy here, and wished to remain till I became your wife. I am otherwise disposed of, but how?"