"Oh, Adeline, don't try to turn it off in this way," I stammered, not knowing what to say, and horribly vexed with myself. "What do you mean--that he came to you in mercy with this wretchedness upon you, the crushed spirit, the breaking heart? I see what you go through day by day, night by night. Is there any cessation to the pain? Is it not as one never-ending anguish?"
Adeline was strangely excited; her eyes glistening, her cheeks a burning crimson, and her white, fragile, feverish hands fastening upon mine.
"It is all you say," she whispered. "And now he is with another!"
"I can understand the misery that thought brings."
"No, you can't. If my heart were laid bare before you, and you saw the wretchedness there as it really is, it would appear to you all as the mania of one insane; and to him as to the rest."
"And yet you say this has come to you in mercy!"
"It has--it has. I see it all now. How else should I have been reconciled to die? The germs of consumption must have been in me from the first," she concluded, after a pause. "You schoolgirls used to tell me I inherited all the English characteristics; and consumption, I suppose, made one of them."
9th.--Miss de Beauroy is here for a day or two, and we had a quiet little soirée yesterday evening. Aunt Agnes, in the plentitude of her delight at the improvement visible in Adeline, limped down, poor lady, in a splendid canary-coloured silk gown, all standing on end with richness. Who should come in unexpectedly after tea, but Monsieur le Comte le Coq de Monty! (I do love, after the fashion of the good Vicar of Wakefield, to give that whole name--I, not Miss Carr). Business with the Sous-Préfet brought him to Belport. He inquired very mal à propos, whether we had recently seen or heard of Mr. St. John; and while we were opening our mouths, deliberating what to say, Rose, always apt and ready, took upon herself evasively to answer that he was in England, at Castle Wafer. Adeline's face was turned away, but the rest of the family looked glum enough. De Monty, very unconsciously, but not the less out of time and tune, entered into a flowery oration in praise of Mr. St. John, saying he was the most attractive man he ever came in contact with; which, considering St. John is an Englishman, and de Monty French, was very great praise indeed.
She looked so lovely this morning, as she sat in the great chair, that I could not forbear an exclamation. But it is all the same to her, admiration and indifference; nothing arouses her from that dreamy apathy.
"Ours is a handsome family," she answered. "See how good-looking papa is! I have inherited his features."