he veil and the cord can change
your nature? No, no! If the heart be not dead, it is cruelty to bury it.
Yours is not so, and shall have another destiny."

Mademoiselle Mars at once communicated with the old Marquis, and
endeavored to dissuade him from his purpose regarding his granddaughter;
but he would not listen to her arguments, nor heed her counsels. At
first, indeed, he could not be brought to believe that Margot herself
could concur in them. It seemed incredible to him that a child of
his house could so far forget her station and self-respect as to avow
herself unequal to any sacrifice or any trial, much less one in itself
the noblest and the highest of all martyrdom.

"You will see," cried he, eagerly, "that it is you--not I--have mistaken
her. These gauds of the fashionable world have no real attraction for
her. Her heart is within those walls, where, in a few days more, she
will herself be forever. She shall come and tell you so with her own
lips."

He sent a servant to call her, but she was not to be found! He searched
everywhere, but in vain. Margot was gone! From that day forth she was
not to be met with. No means were spared in prosecuting the search.
Mademoiselle Mars herself, deeply afflicted at any inducements she might
have held forth to her, joined eagerly in the pursuit, but to no end.

"But you cannot mean, Abbe," said I, as he completed the narrative,
"that to this very hour no trace of her has been discovered?"

"I will not say so much," said he; "for once or twice tidings have
reached her friends that she was well and happy. The career she
had chosen, she well knew would be regarded by her family as a deep
degradation; and she only said to one who saw her, 'Tell them that their
name shall not be dishonored. As for her who bears it, she deems herself
ennobled by the stage!' She was in Italy when last heard of, and in the
Italian theatres; and in some of Alfieri's pieces had earned the most
triumphant successes. Poor girl! from her very cradle her destiny marked
her for misfortune. What a mockery, then, these triumphs if she but
recalls the disgrace by which they are purchased!"

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE GLOOMIEST PASSAGE OF ALL

Shall I own that Margot's story affected me in a very different
manner from what the good Abbe had intended it should? I could neither
sympathize with the outraged pride of the old Marquis, the offended
dignity of family, nor with the insulted honor of the sacred