ame excuse. If she had revered him less she
could have borne to confess to him. She added it would be a relief to
her to confide in him.

"Then tell me all," said he.

She consented almost eagerly, and told him--nearly all. The old man was
deeply affected. He murmured in a broken voice, "Your story is the story
of your sex, self-sacrifice, first to your mother, then to Camille, now
to your husband."

"And he is well worthy of any sacrifice I can make," said Josephine.
"But oh, how hard it is to live!"

"I hope to make it less hard to you ere long," said the doctor quietly.
He then congratulated himself on having forced Josephine to confide in
him. "For," said he, "you never needed an experienced friend more than
at this moment. Your mother will not always be so blind as of late.
Edouard is suspicious. Jacintha is a shrewd young woman, and very
inquisitive."

Josephine was not at the end of her concealments: she was ashamed to let
him know she had made a confidant of Jacintha and not of him. She held
her peace.

"Then," continued Aubertin, "there is the terrible chance of Raynal's
return. But ere I take on me to advise you, what are your own plans?"

"I don't know," said Josephine helplessly.

"You--don't--know!" cried the doctor, looking at her in utter amazement.

"It is the answer of a mad woman, is it not? Doctor, I am little better.
My foot has slipped on the edge of a precipice. I close my eyes, and let
myself glide down it. What will become of me?"

"All shall be well," said Aubertin, "provided you do not still love that
man."

Josephine did not immediately reply: her thoughts turned inwards. The
good doctor was proceeding to congratulate her on being cured of a fatal
passion, when she stopped him with wonder in her face. "Not love him!
How can I help loving him? I was his betrothed. I wronged him in my
thoughts. War, prison, anguish, could not kill him; he loved me so. He
struggled bleeding to my feet; and could I let him die, after all? Could
I be crueller than prison, and torture, and despair?"

The doctor sighed deeply; but, arming himself with the necessary
resolution, he sternly replied, "A woman of your name cannot vacillate
between love and honor; such vacillations have but one end. I will not
let you drift a moral wreck between passion and virtue; and that is what
it will come to if you hesitate now."

"Hesitate! Who can say I have hesitated where my honor was concerned?
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