"Then I depend upon you to make all the needful preparations. There will be no change in my plans; the matter is settled and requires no further discussion."
Maurice knew too well that there was but one course left, and that was submission to her despotic will. He at once apprised Gaston of the determination of the countess. M. de Bois was more grieved for his friend than for himself, and said he could be ready to accompany the party in twenty-four hours.
After this, Maurice took his way to the Waltons. He could not yet summon resolution to go to Madeleine.
We have already said that Mrs. Walton, through her woman's instincts, thought she had discovered Madeleine's secret, and every day some trivial circumstance confirmed her in her belief. But her shrinking nature made it difficult for her ever to take the initiative, or to attempt to change the current of events by any strong act of her own. There was no absence of power in her composition, but a distrust of her own powers which produced the same effect. Hers was a passive and not suggestive nature; if the first step in some desirable path were taken by another she would follow, and labor heart and hand, and by her judgment and zeal accomplish what that other only projected; but she had a horror of taking the responsibility, of "meddling with other people's affairs," even in the hope of bringing about some happy issue.
Ronald's impulses were precisely opposite to his mother's. He had an internal delight in swaying, in influencing, in bending circumstances to his will, in making all the crooked paths straight and righting all the wrongs of mankind. He was always ready to form projects (his father would say in a Quixotic style) and carry them into execution, to benefit his friends. He was deterred by no constitutional timidity, and the rash impulsiveness of youth looks only to happy results, and is seldom curbed by the reflection of possible evil. Ronald would have served Maurice at all hazards, and by all means in his power, or out of his power. He was expressing to his mother the chagrin he felt at the sad position of his friend, and his fear that it would throw a blight over his energies, when the latter remarked,—
"I think I have made a discovery which concerns Maurice, though I do not see how it can benefit him. Yet I am sure I know a secret which he would give almost his existence to learn."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Ronald. "Tell him then at once!"
"I cannot make up my mind that it would tend to any good result. It would be better, I think, not to touch upon the subject at all; let events take their natural course."
"We should build no houses, we should write no books, and paint no pictures, if we adopted that doctrine," answered Ronald. "At least, tell me what you have learned."