at prevented me from
sinking under my sufferings."

"Again, Sarah, let me counsel you to beware of such insensate
dreams,--the awaking would be terrible!"

"Insensate dreams! What, when Rodolph learns that this young girl, who
is now locked up in St. Lazare, and formerly confided to the notary, who
has passed her off for dead, is our child! Do you suppose that--"

Seyton interrupted his sister. "I believe," he said, bitterly, "that
princes place reasons of state, political conveniences, before natural
duties."

"Do you then rely so little on my address?"

"The prince is no longer the ingenuous and impassioned youth whom you
attracted and swayed in other days; that time is long ago, both for him
and for you, sister."

Sarah shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Do you know why I was desirous
of placing this bandeau of coral in my hair,--why I put on this white
dress? It is because the first time Rodolph saw me at the court of
Gerolstein I was dressed in white, and wore this very bandeau of coral
in my hair."

"What!" said Seyton, "you would awake those remembrances? Do you not
rather fear their influence?"

"I know Rodolph better than you do. No doubt my features, changed by
time and sufferings, are no longer those of the young girl of sixteen,
whom he so madly loved,--only loved, for I was his first love; and that
love, unique in the life of man, always leaves ineffaceable traces in
the heart. Thus, then, brother, trust me that the sight of this ornament
will awaken in Rodolph not only the recollection of his love, but those
of his youth also; and for men these souvenirs are always sweet and
precious."

"But these sweet and precious souvenirs will be united with others so
terrible: the sinister _denouement_ of your love, the detestable
behaviour of the prince's father to you, your obstinate silence to
Rodolph. After your marriage with the Count Macgregor, he demanded his
daughter, then an infant,--your child,--of whose death, ten years since,
you informed him so coldly in your letter. Do you forget that from that
period the prince has felt nothing but contempt and hatred for you?"

"Pity has replaced his hatred. Since he has learned that I am dying, he
has sent the Baron de Grauen every day to inquire after me; and just now
he has promised to come here; and that is an immense concession,
brother."

"He believes you dying,--that you desire a last adieu,--and so he comes.
You were wrong not to write to him of