"What advantage can I take of it?"
"You can marry again, and become acquainted with the joys of a happy home."
"My dear Dick, I have loved twice in my life, and you see where I am now. It is not in my destiny to be happy. It is too late to seek what has thus far eluded me. I am thirty years old."
"It is just because you are thirty years old that you cannot do without love. You have undergone the enthusiasm of passion, and that is just the age at which women cannot escape it. It is because you have suffered, because you have been inadequately loved, that the inextinguishable thirst for happiness is bound to awake in you, and, it may be, to lead you from disappointment to disappointment, into deeper abysses than that from which you are now emerging."
"I trust not."
"Yes, of course, you trust not; but you are mistaken, Thérèse; everything is to be feared from your time of life, your overstrained sensitiveness and the deceitful tranquillity due to a moment of weariness and prostration. Love will seek you out, do not doubt it, and you will be pursued and beset the moment that you have recovered your liberty. Formerly, your isolation held in abeyance the hopes of those who surrounded you; but now that Laurent has lowered you in their esteem, all those who claimed to be your friends will seek to be your lovers. You will inspire violent passions, and some there will be sufficiently clever to persuade you. In a word——"
"In a word, Palmer, you consider me lost because I am unhappy! That is very cruel of you, and you make me feel very keenly how debased I am!"
Thérèse put her hands over her face, and wept bitterly.
Palmer let her weep on; seeing that tears would be beneficial to her, he had purposely provoked that outburst. When he saw that she was calmer, he knelt before her.
"Thérèse," he said, "I have caused you bitter pain, but you must give me credit for kindly intentions. I love you, Thérèse, I have always loved you, not with a blind passion, but with all the faith and all the devotion of which I am capable. I can see more plainly than ever that in your case a noble life has been ruined and shattered by the fault of others. You are, in truth, debased in the eyes of the world, but not in mine. On the contrary, your love for Laurent has proved to me that you are a woman, and I love you better so than armed at all points against every human frailty, as I once believed you to be. Listen to me, Thérèse. I am a philosopher; that is to say, I consult common-sense and tolerant ideas rather than the prejudices of society and the romantic subtleties of sentiment. Though you were to plunge into the most deplorable disorders, I should not cease to love you and esteem you, because you are one of those women who cannot be led astray except by the heart. But why should you fall into such a plight? It is perfectly clear to my mind, that if you should meet to-day a devoted, tranquil, and faithful heart, exempt from those mental maladies which sometimes make great artists and often bad husbands—a father, a brother, a friend, in a word, a husband, you would be forever secure against danger and misfortune in the future. Well, Thérèse, I venture to say that I am such a man. There is nothing brilliant about me to dazzle you, but I have a stout heart to love you. My confidence in you is absolute. As soon as you are happy, you will be grateful, and once grateful, you will be loyal and rehabilitated forever. Say yes, Thérèse; consent to marry me and consent at once, without alarm, without scruples, without false delicacy, without distrust of yourself. I give you my life, and ask nothing of you except to believe in me. I feel that I am strong enough not to suffer from the tears which another's ingratitude may still cause you to shed. I shall never reproach you with the past, and I undertake to make the future so pleasant and so secure that no storm will ever tear you from my bosom."