"And nobody else needs it, I am to infer?" retorted Maurice, a little
ungenerously.

He deserved that Madeleine should give him no answer, or, at least, one
that implied a rebuke; but such women are usually tardy in giving men
their ill deserts, and she answered softly, "It will be less hard to
part than it has been."

"You have uttered my very thought," returned Maurice. "It is less hard
to part now that we know how closely we are linked,--now that separation
cannot any longer disunite, and love's assurance has taken the place of
doubt and anguish. Were we _less_ to each other in spirit, we should
feel the material space that can divide us _more_,--is it not so?"

If Maurice expected any answer, he was forced to be contented with the
one which, according to the proverb, gives consent through silence.

It was needful to prepare the countess for his departure. Maurice went
to her chamber, and, after a few inquiries concerning her health, to
which she hardly replied, said,--

"I am truly grieved that I am forced to leave you, my dear grandmother.
I am summoned away by urgent business."

At that last word her brows were slightly knitted, and she murmured
contemptuously, "_Business_" as though the expression awakened some old
train of painful recollection.

"If it were not needful for me to go," continued Maurice, "I would not
leave you; but you have the tender and skilful care of Madeleine and
Bertha, and I shall be able to return to you at any moment that you may
require me."

"Where are you going?" asked the countess, but hardly in a tone of
interest.

"To Charleston."

"Charleston!" she repeated with a startled, troubled look, "Paris,--you
mean Paris?"

"No,--not so far as Paris,--you remember the journey is but short
between Washington and Charleston."

Maurice had not deliberately intended to force upon the countess the
consciousness of her present position; but it was too late to retract.

She raised herself in the bed, leaning with difficulty upon her wasted
arm, and asked, in a frightened tone,--

"Where,--where am I then?"

"In Washington, my dear grandmother. Have you forgotten how my poor
father was"--

"Hush! hush!" she gasped out, "I cannot endure it. Let me think! let me
think!"

She sank back upon the pillow with closed eyes, and the workings of her
features testified that recollection was dawning upon her.

After a time she cried out,--for it was a veritable cry,--"And _this
house_,