"Is she ill? She told me this morning that she would certainly be here. Has anything happened?" asked M. de Bois, speaking as distinctly as though he had never stammered in his life, and throwing off, in his growing excitement, all the awkwardness of his constitutional diffidence.
Bertha could not but remark his anxious expression, and a suspicion, which she had essayed to banish, once more took possession of her mind. But she loved Madeleine with such absolute devotion, that this vague, uncomfortable sensation was quickly displaced by a purer emotion. Glancing at the countess to see that she was not within hearing distance, she disengaged her arm from that of the duke, with a bow which he interpreted into a dismissal, and then, turning eagerly to M. de Bois, recounted to him, in a low, hurried tone, the occurrences of the morning. She fancied she heard words which sounded very like muttered imprecations. He was perhaps putting into practice his new method of loosening his tongue, and doubtless imagined that the emphatic utterances were inaudible.
Bertha went on. "It was a terrible blow to Maurice! He felt so sure until then that Madeleine loved him; so did I. But we were both mistaken. It is plain enough now that she does not."
"What makes it plain? How can you be sure?" asked M. de Bois, becoming more and more disturbed.
"Her own declaration has placed the fact beyond doubt. She even confessed that she loved another."
Her listener did not attempt to conceal his consternation at these words.
"Mademoiselle Madeleine said she loved another! She, who would not stoop to breathe a word which was not the strictest truth,—she told you so? You heard it yourself? You are certain, very certain, Mademoiselle Bertha?"
"I dare say that I ought not to have repeated this to you," replied Bertha, who now experienced some self-reproach at betraying her friend's secret to one whom it, perhaps, so deeply concerned; "but I am very certain that Madeleine distinctly rejected Maurice, and, when he attributed her refusal to his grandmother's and his father's disapproval of his suit, she denied that she was influenced by them, and confessed that her heart was not free,—that she had bestowed it upon another."
"By all that is heroic, she is a noble woman!" exclaimed M. de Bois, fervently. "She has the grandest nature! She is incom-com-com"—
"Incomparable," said Bertha, finishing his sentence, and checking a sigh. "Yes, I never knew any one like her. She has no equal."