atient.

"Indeed!" said Cary smiling. "That was the excess of generosity, but she
might have spared herself the trouble. Let me say it again,
mademoiselle. Not my own mother, not my own sisters, not even Zulma
Sarpy herself could do more for me than I receive at your hands, and if
I recover, as I now believe I shall, I will always hold that I owe my
life to Pauline Belmont."

This little speech thrilled the listener. It was spoken in a calm,
pathetic tone, and the last sentence was accompanied by such a look as
carried a meaning deeper than any words. Words, gesture, look--none of
these things had escaped the girl, but what particularly struck her with
unusual significance was that, for the first time, her patient had
addressed her as "Pauline."

Later in the day, when Pauline was alone for a few moments, she produced
Zulma's letter and read it once more attentively. She could not disguise
from herself that it was a noble letter, full of generous feelings and
instinct with that sympathy which one true friend should testify to
another on occasions of such painful trials. Zulma wrote eloquently of
the dangers and anxieties which Pauline must have experienced on that
dreadful December morning, and renewed her invitation to abandon the
ill-fated town and take up her abode in the peaceful mansion of
Pointe-aux-Trembles. "You are not made for such terrible scenes, my
dear"--these were her words--"I could bear them better, for they are in
my nature. You should be in my place and I in yours. I would thus be in
a position to bear the fatigue of nursing him who is the dearest friend
of us both."

This was the phrase which had puzzled Pauline at the first reading, and
which perplexed her still at the second. It was on account of this
sentence that she did not read the letter to Cary. What could Zulma mean
by it?

"She is much mistaken," thus Pauline soliloquized, "if she thinks I am
unable to bear the burden which Providence has laid upon me. I am no
longer what I was. These two months of almost constant agitation have
nerved me to a courage which I never thought I could have had. They have
completely changed me. When I might have remained out of the town and
gone to Pointe-aux-Trembles, it was I who persuaded my father to return
to this house, and I do not regret it. I would not leave it now if I
could. Much as I should like Zulma's company, and the benefit of her
advice and example, I would not consent to exchange places w