eed a cloudless sky and balmy zephyrs to spread their bloom to
our enraptured eyes.

The hour had come; Diane was now to entangle that great man in the
inextricable meshes of a romance carefully prepared, to which he was
fated to listen as the neophyte of early Christian times listened to the
epistles of an apostle.

"My friend," began Diane, "my mother, who still lives at Uxelles,
married me in 1814, when I was seventeen years old (you see how old I am
now!) to Monsieur de Maufrigneuse, not out of affection for me, but out
of regard for him. She discharged her debt to the only man she had ever
loved, for the happiness she had once received from him. Oh! you need
not be astonished at so horrible a conspiracy; it frequently takes
place. Many women are more lovers than mothers, though the majority
are more mothers than wives. The two sentiments, love and motherhood,
developed as they are by our manners and customs, often struggle
together in the hearts of women; one or other must succumb when they
are not of equal strength; when they are, they produce some exceptional
women, the glory of our sex. A man of your genius must surely comprehend
many things that bewilder fools but are none the less true; indeed I may
go further and call them justifiable through difference of characters,
temperaments, attachments, situations. I, for example, at this moment,
after twenty years of misfortunes, of deceptions, of calumnies endured,
and weary days and hollow pleasures, is it not natural that I should
incline to fall at the feet of a man who would love me sincerely and
forever? And yet, the world would condemn me. But twenty years of
suffering might well excuse a few brief years which may still remain to
me of youth given to a sacred and real love. This will not happen. I am
not so rash as to sacrifice my hopes of heaven. I have borne the burden
and heat of the day, I shall finish my course and win my recompense."

"Angel!" thought d'Arthez.

"After all, I have never blamed my mother; she knew little of me.
Mothers who lead a life like that of the Duchesse d'Uxelles keep their
children at a distance. I saw and knew nothing of the world until my
marriage. You can judge of my innocence! I knew nothing; I was incapable
of understanding the causes of my marriage. I had a fine fortune; sixty
thousand francs a year in forests, which the Revolution overlooked (or
had not been able to sell) in the Nivernais, with the noble chateau of
d'An