"You can imagine, then, what a turmoil was aroused in my breast when one day, while leaning from the window, I saw a face in the street below that awakened within me such strange feelings I could not communicate them even to my mother. I who had hitherto confessed to her every trivial emotion of my life, shrank in a moment, as it were, from revealing a secret no deeper than that I had looked for one half minute upon the form of a passing stranger, and in that minute learned more of my own heart and of the true meaning of life than in all the sixteen years I had hitherto lived. You have seen him since, and you know he possesses every grace that can render a man attractive; but to me that day he did not look like a man at all, or if I thought of him as such, I thought of him as one who set a pattern to his fellows, while retaining his own immeasurable superiority. He did not see me. I do not know that I wished him to. I was quite content to watch him from where I stood, and note his lordly walk and kindly mien, and dream—oh, what did I dream that day! The memory of your own girlhood must tell you, mamma. I did not know his name; I did not suspect his rank; but from his youth I judged him to be single, from his bearing I knew him to be noble, and from his look, which called out a reflected brightness on every face he chanced to pass, I was assured that he was happy and that he was good. And what does a girl's fancy need more? Still a glimpse so short might not have had such deep consequences if it had not been followed by an event which rendered those first impressions indelible."
"An event, Honora?"
"Yes, mamma. You remember the day you sent me with Cecile to take my first lessons in tambour work of Madame Douay?"
"Remember? Oh, my child, that awful day when you came near losing your life! When the house fell with you in it, and—"
"Yes, yes, mamma, and I came home looking so pale you thought I was hurt, and fainted away, and would have died yourself if I had not kissed you back to life. Well, mamma, dear, I was hurt, but not in my body. It was my heart that had received a wound—a wound from which I never shall recover, for it was made by the greatness, the goodness, the noble self-sacrifice of the marquis."
"Honora! And you never mentioned his name—never!"
"I know, I know, mamma; but you have already forgiven me for that. You know it was from no unworthy motive. Think how you felt when you first saw papa. Think—"
A hurried movement from the mother interrupted her.
"Do not keep me in suspense," she pleaded; "let me hear what you have to tell."
"But you are cold; you shudder. Let me get a shawl."