sity of leading a regular life, compelled to set an example of
moral conduct, and to live with the Countess, from whom nothing could
have alienated him but some illicit connection; for how could a woman so
pure as Madame de Granville ever tolerate the disorderly life into which
her husband had drifted?" The sanctimonious woman accepted as facts
these hints, which unluckily were not merely hypothetical, and Madame de
Granville was stricken as by a thunderbolt.

Angelique, knowing nothing of the world, of love and its follies, was so
far from conceiving of any conditions of married life unlike those
that had alienated her husband as possible, that she believed him to be
incapable of the errors which are crimes in the eyes of any wife.
When the Count ceased to demand anything of her, she imagined that the
tranquillity he now seemed to enjoy was in the course of nature; and, as
she had really given to him all the love which her heart was capable
of feeling for a man, while the priest's conjectures were the utter
destruction of the illusions she had hitherto cherished, she defended
her husband; at the same time, she could not eradicate the suspicion
that had been so ingeniously sown in her soul.

These alarms wrought such havoc in her feeble brain that they made her
ill; she was worn by low fever. These incidents took place during Lent
1822; she would not pretermit her austerities, and fell into a decline
that put her life in danger. Granville's indifference was added torture;
his care and attention were such as a nephew feels himself bound to give
to some old uncle.

Though the Countess had given up her persistent nagging and
remonstrances, and tried to receive her husband with affectionate words,
the sharpness of the bigot showed through, and one speech would often
undo the work of a week.

Towards the end of May, the warm breath of spring, and more nourishing
diet than her Lenten fare, restored Madame de Granville to a little
strength. One morning, on coming home from Mass, she sat down on a stone
bench in the little garden, where the sun's kisses reminded her of the
early days of her married life, and she looked back across the years to
see wherein she might have failed in her duty as a wife and mother. She
was broken in upon by the Abbe Fontanon in an almost indescribable state
of excitement.

"Has any misfortune befallen you, Father?" she asked with filial
solicitude.

"Ah! I only wish," cried the Normandy pries