wants of her favorite child. Well, then! in case all other means failed,
she _would_ go to Normandy. The dreadful sight of the morning, the
effects she had made to revive Nathan, the hours passed beside his
pillow, his broken confession, the agony of a great soul, a vast genius
stopped in its upward flight by a sordid vulgar obstacle,--all these
things rushed into her memory and stimulated her love. She went over
and over her emotions, and felt her love to be deeper in these days
of misery than in those of Nathan's fame and grandeur. She felt the
nobility of his last words said to her in Lady Dudley's boudoir. What
sacredness in that farewell! What grandeur in the immolation of a
selfish happiness which would have been her torture! The countess had
longed for emotions, and now she had them,--terrible, cruel, and yet
most precious. She lived a deeper life in pain than in pleasure. With
what delight she said to herself: "I have saved him once, and I will
save him again." She heard him cry out when he felt her lips upon his
forehead, "Many a poor wretch does not know what love is!"

"Are you ill?" said her husband, coming into her room to take her to
breakfast.

"I am dreadfully worried about a matter that is happening at my
sister's," she replied, without actually telling a lie.

"Your sister has fallen into bad hands," replied Felix. "It is a shame
for any family to have a du Tillet in it,--a man without honor of any
kind. If disaster happened to her she would get no pity from him."

"What woman wants pity?" said the countess, with a convulsive motion. "A
man's sternness is to us our only pardon."

"This is not the first time that I read your noble heart," said the
count. "A woman who thinks as you do needs no watching."

"Watching!" she said; "another shame that recoils on you."

Felix smiled, but Marie blushed. When women are secretly to blame they
often show ostensibly the utmost womanly pride. It is a dissimulation of
mind for which we ought to be obliged to them. The deception is full of
dignity, if not of grandeur. Marie wrote two lines to Nathan under the
name of Monsieur Quillet, to tell him that all went well, and sent them
by a street porter to the hotel du Mail. That night, at the Opera, Felix
thought it very natural that she should wish to leave her box and go to
that of her sister, and he waited till du Tillet had left his wife
to give Marie his arm and take her there. Who can tell what emotions
agita