"I have no alternative."
"Then I am more thankful than ever," she replied, tartly, "that when my aunt wished to make a match between us, I never thought of accepting you! I never could have endured such a patient, contented, stoical suitor, who would be perfectly happy in spite of his separation from me."
Maurice laughed at this sally, but Gaston remarked, seriously,—
"Yet you demand great sacrifices from one who is not as patient and well-disciplined. You make your wedding-day dependent upon Mademoiselle Madeleine's, when Mademoiselle Madeleine declares that she does not intend to name one."
"We are an obstinate family, you see!" retorted Bertha, her good-humor returning.
"Will not your father miss you?" suggested the ever thoughtful Madeleine to Maurice. "You have been absent very long; that talkative nurse may not be able to restrain herself, and your presence may be needful to preserve harmony."
Maurice admitted that he ought to return; but, after bidding Madeleine adieu, he could not persuade himself to go back to the hotel until he had seen those to whom he owed his present happiness.
"Ronald!" he exclaimed, as he entered Mrs. Walton's drawing-room; "long ago I became largely your debtor, but now you have placed me under an obligation which cannot be estimated. Oh, if I only had your energy and promptitude of action, I might some day"—
Ronald interrupted him: "Then my mother was right, and I did not give you bad advice in spite of my Quixotism?"
Maurice related what had happened to sympathetic listeners.