hand in marriage. She uttered no
word on her way home, where she arrived just in time to take her place
at the dinner table, and never was a more dismal company assembled for
the evening meal. Her own miseries occupied Sabine, and her father
and mother were suffering from their interviews with Mascarin and Dr.
Hortebise. What did the liveried servants, who waited at table with
such an affectation of interest, care for the sorrows of their master
or mistress? They were well lodged and well fed, and nothing save their
wages did they care for. By nine o'clock Sabine was in her own room
trying to grow accustomed to the thoughts of an interview with M. de
Breulh-Faverlay. She hardly closed her eyes all night, and felt worn out
and dispirited by musing; but she never thought of evading the promise
she had made to Andre, or of putting it off for a time. She had vowed
to lose no time, and her lover was eagerly awaiting a letter from her,
telling him of the result. In the perplexity in which she found herself,
she could not confide in either father or mother, for she felt that a
cloud hung over both their lives, though she knew not what it was. When
she left the convent where she had been educated, and returned home, she
felt that she was in the way, and that the day of her marriage would be
one of liberation to her parents from their cares and responsibilities.
All this prayed terribly upon her mind, and might have driven a less
pure-minded girl to desperate measures. It seemed to her that it
would be less painful to fly from her father's house than to have this
interview with M. de Breulh-Faverlay. Luckily for her, frail as she
looked, she possessed an indomitable will, and this carried her through
most of her difficulties.

For Andre's sake, as well as her own, she did not wish to violate any
of the unwritten canons of society, but she longed for the hour to come
when she could acknowledge her love openly to the world. At one moment
she thought of writing a letter, but dismissed the thought as the height
of folly. As the time passed Sabine began to reproach herself for her
cowardice. All at once she heard the clang of the opening of the main
gates. Peeping from her window, she saw a carriage drive up, and, to her
inexpressible delight, M. de Breulh-Faverlay alighted from it.

"Heaven has heard my prayer, and sent him to me," murmured she.

"What do you intend to do, Mademoiselle?" asked the devoted Modeste;
"will you speak