ained emotion, "I
have often said to you: My courage was my mother. You see, my friend,
when I went to her, with my heart torn by some horrible ingratitude, or
disgusted by some base deceit, she, taking my hands between her own
venerable palms, would say to me in her grave and tender voice: 'My dear
child, it is for the ungrateful and dishonest to suffer; let us pity the
wicked, let us forget evil, and only think of good.'--Then, my friend,
this heart, painfully contracted, expanded beneath the sacred influence
of the maternal words, and every day I gathered strength from her, to
recommence on the morrow a cruel struggle with the sad necessities of my
condition. Happily, it has pleased God, that, after losing that beloved
mother, I have been able to bind up my life with affections, deprived of
which, I confess, I should find myself feeble and disarmed for you cannot
tell, Marcel, the support, the strength that I have found in your
friendship."

"Do not speak of me, my dear friend," replied M. de Blessac, dissembling
his embarrassment. "Let us talk of another affection, almost as sweet and
tender as that of a mother."

"I understand you, my good Marcel," replied M. Hardy: "I have concealed
nothing from you since, under such serious circumstances, I had recourse
to the counsels of your friendship. Well! yes; I think that every day I
live augment my adoration for this woman, the only one that I have ever
passionately loved, the only one that I shall now ever love. And then I
must tell you, that my mother, not knowing what Margaret was to me, as
often loud in her praise, and that circumstance renders this love almost
sacred in my eyes."

"And then there are such strange resemblances between Mme. de Noisy's
character and yours, my friend; above all, in her worship of her mother."

"It is true, Marcel; that affection has often caused me both admiration
and torment. How often she has said to me, with her habitual frankness:
'I have sacrificed all for you, but I would sacrifice you for my
mother.'"

"Thank heaven, my friend, you will never see Mme. de Noisy exposed to
that cruel choice. Her mother, you say, has long renounced her intention
of returning to America, where M. de Noisy, perfectly careless of his
wife, appears to have settled himself permanently. Thanks to the discreet
devotion of the excellent woman by whom Margaret was brought up, your
love is concealed in the deepest mystery. What could disturb it now?"

"