Again she tried to rouse herself; again she tried to reason. "Why am I so concerned about him?" she asked herself. "I must put these foolish thoughts aside."
But love denied what reason would dictate, and she found herself continually sighing.
Meanwhile, Tom continued his visits from time to time, and she received him with as much coldness as she dared.
But when she came to think that Frank was an acquaintance to be forgotten, she slightly changed her manner towards her cousin.
Her father was not slow to notice the change. He laughed inly and chuckled: "I knew she would come to love him; but I must not hurry her, she is by nature a slow coach; everything will yet come all right in the end."
The days were lengthening and Tom continued to come as early as he used to do in the depth of winter.
It was now quite daylight when he put in an appearance. One evening he took Adèle for a walk round the garden. Poor girl; she did not love him, but she did not like to speak roughly to him. She felt that she was wronging him. She knew that at each meeting his hope increased. Still, what was she to do? She began to persuade herself that he was not so bad as she had imagined. He was now a reformed man; her father had told her so, and she could see it. If the passion for drink which was still probably strong within him should return! She paused, mused and said with a sigh: "Alas! I do not feel that I love him."
Still; she hardly knew if in the end she would accept him. He would be so deeply grieved if she refused, and then, if she accepted him, her father would perhaps become once more what he was when she was quite a child. She remembered how he used to take her on his knee, and call her his dear little girl.
She went on thinking: "How many people marry without what is generally called love? Certainly, the greater portion. The French have what they call marriages de raison, and they seem to agree as well as others."
Poor Adèle. How many have reasoned thus, how many are daily giving themselves away in marriage to men for whom they feel nought but friendship; how many give their hand to one, while their heart yearns for another.