Madeleine's hueless face was overspread with a brilliant glow as she cast upon Maurice one hasty look of gratitude.
"I speak what I mean. Madeleine cannot, without sacrificing her self-respect, accept hospitality which is not freely given,—protection which is unwillingly accorded. She cannot remain here as an inferior,—a dependent; one who is under daily obligation,—who is merely tolerated because she has no other place of refuge. My father, there is only one position in which she can remain in the Château de Gramont, and that is as an equal; as its future mistress; as your daughter; as my wife!"
The countess was stricken dumb with rage; and a sudden revulsion of feeling toward the shrinking girl, whose deep blushes she interpreted into a token of exultation, made her almost as willing to drive her forth, no matter whither, as her son himself.
Bertha, with an exclamation of delight, flung her arms joyfully about Madeleine's neck.
"Maurice, are you mad? Do you forget that you are my son?" was all that the count could gasp out, in his indignant amazement.
"It is as your son that I speak; it is as the inheritor of your name,—that name which Madeleine also bears."
"You seem to have forgotten"—began his father.
Maurice interrupted him,—
"I have not forgotten that I have not reached my majority, and that your consent is necessary to render Madeleine my wife."
(Our readers are doubtless aware that the law in France fixes the majority of a young man at twenty-five, and that he has no power to contract marriage or to control property until that period.)