"Incredible!" replied Maurice.
"Very credible, my dear Maurice, as you are bound to admit; for that man stands before me."
"Ronald, for pity's sake—this—this is inhuman!"
"Do not wrong me so much, Maurice, as to think me capable of speaking lightly upon such a subject. My mother's perception of character is really wonderful; and her instincts, I think, never fail her; she is convinced that it is you, and you only, whom Madeleine loves. Reflect how many proofs of love she has given you! Has she not, through M. de Bois, kept trace of all your movements during the years that you were separated? Did she not run great risk to watch beside your sick-bed in Paris? Did you not tell me that it was her prompt and generous interference which prevented your losing your credit with Mr. Emerson? Does not her every action prove that you are ever in her thoughts? And, Maurice, I tell you, it is you whom she loves."
Maurice listened as though some holy voice from supernal regions chanted heavenly music in his ears. But he roused himself from the delicious dream, for he did not dare to yield to its spell, and said,—
"Did she not herself tell me that she loved another?"
"May you not have mistaken her exact words?" asked Ronald. "It was necessary to renounce you, to take all hope away from you, and place in your path the only barrier which you could not hope to overleap. And may she not have given you the impression that she loved, that her affections were engaged, while you drew the inference from her rejecting your hand that her heart was given to some other?"
The countenance of Maurice grew effulgent with the flood of hope poured upon it.
"Oh, if it were so!" he exclaimed, in rapture. "Ronald, my best friend, what do I not owe you? Mrs. Walton, why, why are you silent? Speak to me! Tell me that you really believe Madeleine loves me!"
Mrs. Walton, alarmed by the violence of his emotion, began to turn over in her mind the unfortunate results which might ensue if she had made an error. Maurice still implored her to speak, and she said, at last, with some hesitation,—