"I shall not go," replied the countess slowly, and as though it cost her a great effort to force out the words.
Maurice made no remonstrance; he well knew that to endeavor to alter a resolution of hers would be a fruitless attempt.
"And you, Bertha?" he inquired.
Bertha looked toward the countess: "Perhaps you would not like me to leave you?"
"All leave me!" she almost groaned out. "Why not you?"
"I will stay with my aunt," replied Bertha, without hesitation.
And she remained all day beside the afflicted, but ever haughty, countess. They did not converse, for the latter rarely spoke, even in answer to Bertha's questions, and Bertha could invent no mode of arousing and amusing her.
M. de Bois, not finding Bertha at Madeleine's, came to the hotel; but his presence was obviously very distasteful to the countess. She did not withdraw, she would have suffered martyrdom (as she did) rather than commit the impropriety of leaving Bertha alone with her lover; but she sat with knitted brows, her stony eyes turned scrutinizingly upon them, listening to and passing judgment upon every word they uttered, and looking a rebuke if Bertha ventured to smile. The icy chill of such a presence rendered Bertha and Gaston so thoroughly uncomfortable, that the young girl, although she was one of those beings who could hardly bear to live out of the sight of those she loved best, felt relieved when Gaston rose and bade her adieu. His visit had been brief, yet it seemed longer than all the combined hours they had passed together during the last three days. The visage of the countess relaxed somewhat after Gaston had gone, but she remained lost in thought without further noticing her niece. Bertha was, at least, spared the nervous unrest produced by those piercing eyes ever upon her.
Unfortunately Bertha's resources for self-diversion were of the most limited description. Hers was a social, a wholly dependent nature; she could not, like Madeleine, create her own amusement, and make her own occupation. She tried to read, but could not fix her attention; she tried to embroider, but quickly threw down her work; she could only wander in and out of the room, now watching at the window as though she expected some one; now sitting down and jumping up again; now turning over books and papers, and looking about for something, she did not know what, until she had thrown the room into complete disorder; and certainly her restless flitting backward and forward would have half distracted any one less absorbed than the countess. During one of Bertha's fits of contemplation at the window, she exclaimed,—
"Here comes Maurice, at last! I thought he would never be here!"