"But I can return to it the very day your happiness is assured. When you are Philip's wife you will go to Paris with him, and I can then return to my place beside the Marquis."
"Dolores! How good you are, and how much I love you!" exclaimed Mademoiselle de Mirandol, clasping her friend in her arms.
The words of Dolores had reassured her, had revived her hopes and dried her tears. When left alone, Dolores, exhausted by the ordeal through which she had just passed, could at first form no plans for the future. She comprehended but one thing—she was still beloved. Philip's faithfulness and the intensity of the love which had just been revealed to her rendered the sacrifice still more difficult. It seemed to her she would never have strength to accomplish it.
"It must be done," she said to herself, finally.
And shaking off her weakness, she went in search of the Marquis. They had a long conversation together. Dolores told him the whole truth. It was through her that the Marquis learned that she was loved by Philip, and that she loved him in return, but, being unwilling to place any obstacle in the way of the plans long since formed with a view to the restoration of the glory of the house of Chamondrin, she had renounced her hopes and yielded her place and her rights to Antoinette. The Marquis had not the courage to refuse the proffered sacrifice, though he fully realized the extent of it. His dearest wishes were about to be realized. While he lamented the fate to which Dolores had condemned herself, he was grateful for a decision that spared him the unpleasantness of a contest with his son, and which insured that son's marriage to a rich heiress. Still, when Dolores told him that she had decided to leave Chamondrin not to return until after Philip's marriage, he refused at first to consent to a separation.
"But it is necessary," replied Dolores. "So long as Philip sees me here, he will not relinquish his hopes. I am certain that he will not consent to renounce me unless he believes there is an impassable barrier between us, unless he believes me dead to the world and to love. Besides, you would surely not require me to live near one whom I wish to forget. I shall spend two years in a convent, and then I will return to you."
M. de Chamondrin, touched by this heroism whose grandeur Dolores, in her simplicity, did not seem to comprehend, pressed her to his heart in a long embrace, covering her face with kisses and murmuring words of tenderness and gratitude in her ears. When they separated, he was not the least moved of the two. Dolores next went in search of Philip. She found him at the Buissieres, the same place where he had entreated Antoinette to intercede for him a few hours before.
He saw her approaching.
"She is coming to pronounce my sentence," he thought.
She was very calm. The sadness imprinted on her face did not mar its serenity.