uch a question?" cried the countess. "Is not the
woman you love always the handsomest of women?"

"Yes, always," I said, firmly, with a glance which she could not
sustain.

"You are a happy fellow," said the count; "yes, a very happy one. Ha! in
my young days, I should have gone mad over such a conquest--"

"Hush!" said Madame de Mortsauf, reminding the count of Madeleine by a
look.

"I am not a child," he said.

When we left the table I followed the countess to the terrace. When
we were alone she exclaimed, "How is it possible that some women can
sacrifice their children to a man? Wealth, position, the world, I can
conceive of; eternity? yes, possibly; but children! deprive one's self
of one's children!"

"Yes, and such women would give even more if they had it; they sacrifice
everything."

The world was suddenly reversed before her, her ideas became confused.
The grandeur of that thought struck her; a suspicion entered her mind
that sacrifice, immolation justified happiness; the echo of her own
inward cry for love came back to her; she stood dumb in presence of her
wasted life. Yes, for a moment horrible doubts possessed her; then she
rose, grand and saintly, her head erect.

"Love her well, Felix," she said, with tears in her eyes; "she shall
be my happy sister. I will forgive her the harm she has done me if she
gives you what you could not have here. You are right; I have never told
you that I loved you, and I never have loved you as the world loves. But
if she is a mother how can she love you so?"

"Dear saint," I answered, "I must be less moved than I am now, before I
can explain to you how it is that you soar victoriously above her. She
is a woman of earth, the daughter of decaying races; you are the child
of heaven, an angel worthy of worship; you have my heart, she my flesh
only. She knows this and it fills her with despair; she would change
parts with you even though the cruellest martyrdom were the price of the
change. But all is irremediable. To you the soul, to you the thoughts,
the love that is pure, to you youth and old age; to her the desires and
joys of passing passion; to you remembrance forever, to her oblivion--"

"Tell me, tell me that again, oh, my friend!" she turned to a bench and
sat down, bursting into tears. "If that be so, Felix, virtue, purity
of life, a mother's love, are not mistakes. Oh, pour that balm upon
my wounds! Repeat the words which bear me back to heaven, where once