Yet were we to search her breast, we should find a secret sorrow there. She had made every effort to banish the feeling, but without effect. The consciousness that she had a secret from her husband troubled her, but she dared not reveal it to him. Even to Father Norham, she had not entirely laid bare her heart.
One day, when she was at confession in the small chamber, employed for her private devotions, and which was furnished with an altar and a crucifix, the good priest thus addressed her:
“I grieve to find, dear daughter, that you still keep back from the Earl, your husband, the secret that has so long weighed upon your breast. This ought not to be. He is entitled to your fullest confidence, and any concealment from him even of a trivial matter is sinful.”
“I know it, father,” she replied; “and I ardently desire to relieve my breast of its burden by disclosing all to him, and am only deterred by the fear of giving him pain.”
“Perhaps you are right, daughter,” said the priest, after some reflection. “As no good purpose can be answered by this disclosure, and it is possible it might cause temporary estrangement of the earl's affections, I will not urge you to incur that hazard. But I should be glad to learn that you have at last entirely dismissed the silly fancy which you have so long allowed to occupy your breast. Give me an assurance to that effect, and I shall be content.”
“I am far easier than I was, father,” she rejoined with a sigh. “But I have not entirely subdued the feeling.”
“Persevere, daughter, and you will succeed,” said the priest. “Fasting and prayer will do much.”
“I am willing to undergo any penance you may enjoin, father,” she replied; “and, however severe it may be, I shall not complain—provided I obtain relief.”
“With these good resolutions you cannot fail, daughter, and you shall have my best assistance.”
The good father's injunctions were strictly obeyed by the countess, and after a time she told him her breast was tranquillised.