which would be impossible? She took the young girl
in her arms, and tenderly kissed her forehead.

"Then, now it is ended, my dear child; all ended?"

Angelique at first did not appear to understand what was said to her.
Soon the words returned to her as if from a distance. She looked fixedly
before her, seeming anxious to question the empty space, and at last she
replied:

"Without doubt, mother."

Indeed, on the morrow she seated herself at the work-frame and
embroidered as she was wont to do. She took up her usual routine of
daily work, and did not appear to suffer. Moreover, no allusion was made
to the past; she no longer looked from time to time out of the window
into the garden, and gradually losing her paleness, the natural
colour came back to her cheeks. The sacrifice appeared to have been
accomplished.

Hubert himself thought it was so, and, convinced of the wisdom of
Hubertine, did all in his power to keep Felicien at a distance. The
latter, not daring to openly revolt against his father, grew feverishly
impatient, to such a degree that he almost broke the promise he had made
to wait quietly without trying to see Angelique again. He wrote to her,
and the letters were intercepted. He even went to the house one morning,
but it was Hubert alone who received him. Their explanatory conversation
saddened them both to an equal degree, so much did the young man appear
to suffer when the embroiderer told him of his daughter's calmness and
her air of forgetfulness. He besought him to be loyal, and go to away,
that he might not again throw the child into the fearful trouble of the
last few weeks.

Felicien again pledged himself to be patient, but he violently refused
to take back his word, for he was still hopeful that he might persuade
his father in the end. He could wait; he would let affairs remain in
their present state with the Voincourts, where he dined twice a week,
doing so simply to avoid a direct act of open rebellion.

And as he left the house he besought Hubert to explain to Angelique why
he had consented to the torment of not seeing her for the moment; he
thought only of her, and the sole aim of everything he did was to gain
her at last.

When her husband repeated this conversation to her, Hubertine grew very
serious. Then, after a short silence, she asked:

"Shall you tell our daughter what he asked you to say to her?"

"I ought to do so."

She was again silent, but finally added:

"Act acc