ourage. The
spirit was strong, but the flesh was weak, and when my hand did not
tremble, the spirit within me wavered.

"I do not know the reason of these inner struggles, and alternations. I
am very pitiably a woman no doubt, weak in my will, strong only to love.
Oh, I despise myself. At night, when all my household was asleep, I
would go out bravely as far as the lake; but when I stood on the brink,
my cowardice shrank from self-destruction. To you I will confess my
weakness. When I lay in my bed, again, shame would come over me, and
courage would come back. Once I took a dose of laudanum; I was ill, but
I did not die. I thought I had emptied the phial, but I had only taken
half the dose."

"You are lost, madame," the cure said gravely, with tears in his voice.
"You will go back into the world, and you will deceive the world. You
will seek and find a compensation (as you imagine it to be) for your
woes; then will come a day of reckoning for your pleasures--"

"Do you think," she cried, "that _I_ shall bestow the last, the most
precious treasures of my heart upon the first base impostor who can
play the comedy of passion? That I would pollute my life for a moment
of doubtful pleasure? No; the flame which shall consume my soul shall be
love, and nothing but love. All men, monsieur, have the senses of
their sex, but not all have the man's soul which satisfies all the
requirements of our nature, drawing out the melodious harmony which
never breaks forth save in response to the pressure of feeling. Such a
soul is not found twice in our lifetime. The future that lies before
me is hideous; I know it. A woman is nothing without love; beauty is
nothing without pleasure. And even if happiness were offered to me a
second time, would not the world frown upon it? I owe my daughter an
honored mother. Oh! I am condemned to live in an iron circle, from which
there is but one shameful way of escape. The round of family duties, a
thankless and irksome task, is in store for me. I shall curse life; but
my child shall have at least a fair semblance of a mother. I will give
her treasures of virtue for the treasures of love of which I defraud
her.

"I have not even the mother's desire to live to enjoy her child's
happiness. I have no belief in happiness. What will Helene's fate be?
My own, beyond doubt. How can a mother ensure that the man to whom she
gives her daughter will be the husband of her heart? You pour scorn
on the miserable