made me almost distracted, since
I have realised the truth of the case, and carried her upstairs in so
pitiable a state. It is our fault. We have separated them by falsehoods,
and I am not only ashamed, but so angry with myself it makes me ill. But
what? Will you let her suffer so, without saying anything to save her?"

Still Hubertine was as silent as Angelique, and, pale from anxiety,
looked at him calmly and soothingly. But he, always an excitable man,
was now so overcome by what he had just seen that, forgetting his usual
submission, he was almost beside himself, could not keep still, but
threw his hands up and down in his feverish agitation.

"Very well, then! I will speak, and I will tell her that Felicien loves
her, and that it is we who have had the cruelty to prevent him from
returning, in deceiving him also. Now, every tear she sheds cuts me to
the heart. Were she to die, I should consider myself as having been her
murderer. I wish her to be happy. Yes! happy at any cost, no matter how,
but by all possible means."

He had approached his wife, and he dared to cry out in the revolt of
his tenderness, being doubly irritated by the sad silence she still
maintained.

"Since they love each other, it is they alone who should be masters of
the situation. There is surely nothing in the world greater than to love
and be loved. Yes, happiness is always legitimate."

At length Hubertine, standing motionless, spoke slowly:

"You are willing, then, that he should take her from us, are you not?
That he should marry her notwithstanding our opposition, and without the
consent of his father? Would you advise them to do so? Do you think that
they would be happy afterwards, and that love would suffice them?"

And without changing her manner she continued in the same heart-broken
voice:

"On my way home I passed by the cemetery, and an undefinable hope made
me enter there again. I knelt once more on the spot that is worn by our
knees, and I prayed there for a long time."

Hubert had turned very pale, and a cold chill replaced the fever of a
few moments before. Certainly he knew well the tomb of the unforgiving
mother, where they had so often been in tears and in submission, as they
accused themselves of their disobedience, and besought the dead to send
them her pardon from the depths of the earth. They had remained there
for hours, sure that if the grace they demanded were ever granted them
they would be cognisant of it