afforded me so much consolation
and sweet occupation."

"Hear me, I beseech you,--since you tell me it is right, I will marry
this woman; but the sacrifice once accomplished, think not I will remain
a single hour with her, or suffer her to behold my child; thus
Fleur-de-Marie will lose in you the best and tenderest of mothers."

"But she will still retain the best and tenderest of fathers. By your
marriage with the Countess Sarah she will be the legitimate daughter of
one of Europe's sovereign princes, and, as you but just now observed, my
lord, her position will be as great and splendid as it has been
miserable and obscure."

"You are then pitilessly determined to shut out all hope from me?
Unhappy being that I am!"

"Dare you style yourself unhappy,--you so good, so just, so elevated in
rank, as well as in mind and feeling? Who so well and nobly understand
the duty of self-denial and self-sacrifice? When but a short time since
you bewailed your child's death with such heartfelt agony, had any one
said to you, 'Utter the dearest wish of your soul and it shall be
accomplished,' you would have cried, 'My child--my daughter! Restore her
to me in life and health!' This unexpected blessing is granted you, your
daughter is given to your longing arms, and yet you style yourself
miserable! Ah, my lord, let not Fleur-de-Marie hear you, I beseech you!"

"You are right," said Rodolph, after a long silence, "such happiness as
I aspired to would have been too much for this world, and far beyond my
right even to dream of. Be satisfied your words have prevailed,--I will
act according to my duty to my daughter, and forget the bleeding wound
it inflicts on my own heart. But I am not sorry I hesitated in my
resolution, since I owe to it a fresh proof of the perfection of your
character."

"And is it not to you I owe the power of struggling with personal
feelings and devoting myself to the good of others? Was it not you who
raised and comforted my poor depressed mind, and encouraged me to look
for comfort where only it could be found? To you, then, be all the merit
of the little virtue I may now be practising, as well as all the good I
may hereafter achieve. But take courage, my lord, bear up, as becomes
one of your firm, right-minded nature. Directly Fleur-de-Marie is equal
to the journey, remove her to Germany; once there, she will benefit so
greatly by the grave tranquillity of the country that her mind and
feelings will be so