e laugh: "This only is wanting to your triumph--to bring me to
confess that I am mad--that my proper place is here--that I owe you--"

"Gratitude. Yes, you do owe it me, even as I told you at the commencement
of this conversation. Listen to me then; my words may be cruel, but there
are wounds which can only be cured with steel and fire. I conjure you, my
dear child--reflect--throw back one impartial glance at your past
life--weigh your own thoughts--and you will be afraid of yourself.
Remember those moments of strange excitement, during which, as you have
told me, you seemed to soar above the earth--and, above all, while it is
yet time--while you preserve enough clearness of mind to compare and
judge--compare, I entreat, your manner of living with that of other
ladies of your age? Is there a single one who acts as you act? who thinks
as you think? unless, indeed, you imagine yourself so superior to other
women, that, in virtue of that supremacy, you can justify a life and
habits that have no parallel in the world."

"I have never had such stupid pride, you know it well," said Adrienne,
looking at the doctor with growing terror.

"Then, my dear child, to what are we to attribute your strange and
inexplicable mode of life? Can you even persuade yourself that it is
founded on reason? Oh, my child! take care?--As yet, you only indulge in
charming originalities of conduct, poetical eccentricities, sweet and
vague reveries--but the tendency is fatal, the downward course
irresistible. Take care, take care!--the healthful, graceful, spiritual
portion of your intelligence has yet the upper hand, and imprints its
stamp upon all your extravagances; but you do not know, believe me, with
what frightful force the insane portion of the mind, at a given moment,
develops itself and strangles up the rest. Then we have no longer
graceful eccentricities, like yours, but ridiculous, sordid, hideous
delusions."

"Oh! you frighten me," said the unfortunate girl, as she passed her
trembling hands across her burning brow.

"Then," continued M. Baleinier, in an agitated voice, "then the last rays
of intelligence are extinguished; then madness--for we must pronounce the
dreaded word--gets the upper hand, and displays itself in furious and
savage transports."

"Like the woman upstairs," murmured Adrienne, as, with fixed and eager
look, she raised her finger towards the ceiling.

"Sometimes," continued the doctor, alarmed himself at the terr