"My affections are bestowed; my heart is no longer free!"
"Madeleine, Madeleine! you do not love Maurice,—you love some one else?" questioned Bertha, in sorrowful astonishment.
Maurice spoke no word. He stood one moment looking at Madeleine as a drowning man might have looked at the ship that could have saved him disappearing in the distance. Then he murmured, hardly conscious of his own words,—
"And I felt sure her heart was mine! O Madeleine! may you never know what you have done!"
"Forgive me if you can, Maurice. Be generous enough to pardon one who has made you suffer. A bright future is before you. The darkness of this hour will gradually fade out of your memory."
"Say, rather, that you have taken from me my future,—withdrawn its guiding star, and left me a rayless and eternal night. But why should I reproach you? What right had I to deem myself worthy of you? You love another. All is spoken in those words: there is nothing more for me to say, except to thank you for not discarding me without making a confession which annihilates all hope."
There was a dignity in his grief more touching than the most passionate outburst would have been. Even his grandmother, in spite of her joy at Madeleine's declaration, was not wholly unmoved as she contemplated him. Count Tristan's exultation broke through all polite disguise,—
"Madeleine has atoned for much of the past by her present conduct; it has restored her in a measure to"—
Madeleine, as far as her gentle nature permitted, experienced an antipathy toward Count Tristan only surpassed by that which he entertained for her. The sound of his voice grated on her ears; his commendation made her doubt the wisdom and purity of her own act; his approval irritated her as no rebuke could have done. Without waiting for him to conclude his sentence, she grasped Bertha's hand, whispering, "I cannot stay here; I am stifling; come with me."
They left the room together, and took their way in silence to Madeleine's chamber. Bertha carefully closed the door, and, drawing her cousin down into a seat, placed herself beside her, and strove to read her countenance.