"And you,—you knew this all the time, and did not tell me? What penalty can I make you pay that will be severe enough? I will plot mischief with Madeleine. If we can punish you in no other manner, we will postpone to a tantalizing distance the day you wish near at hand. Confess that I was wise to wait! I knew Madeleine's lover would claim her in good season, but I never suspected he was my own dear cousin Maurice, whom she so resolutely rejected."
"Nor did I!" cried Maurice, joyously; "and if I can forgive Gaston, you must."
"All in good time; after he is fitly punished, not before! What do you say, Madeleine? Shall we promise these two hapless swains their brides a couple of years hence?"
"Bertha, Bertha! you have not understood," answered Madeleine, gravely, yet with a happy smile on her sweet lips. "Maurice has no promise of a bride; he looks forward to no bride, though I trust, you will, before very long, give one to M. de Bois."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Bertha, completely sobered by this unexpected announcement. "I thought you had confessed to Maurice that he was the mysterious but fortunate individual whom you loved, and whom I have been puzzling my brains to discover."
Madeleine did not choose to respond to the statement made with such straightforward ingenuousness by Bertha, and only replied,—
"Madame de Gramont would never give her consent to the marriage of Maurice with the humble mantua-maker. I have too much of the de Gramont pride, or too much pride of my own, or too much of some stronger feeling which I can only translate into a sense of right and fitness, to become the wife of Maurice in the face of such opposition."
Bertha looked sorely disappointed and vexed, but vented her spleen upon the one whom she loved best, according to the invariable practice of women. She said to Gaston,—
"There! you are no better off than you were before! That's just what you deserve for keeping this secret from me!"