--_this bed_ where I am lying,--O God! it is too much!"

Maurice was at a loss to know what to do. He waited to see if she would
not question him, would not speak again; but, as she lay silent and
motionless, he retired and sought his cousins.

"Do not be so much distressed," prayed Madeleine, when she heard what he
had to relate. "This was unavoidable,--your grandmother's intellect was
not disturbed,--her memory only seemed quiescent; the most casual
circumstance might, at any moment, have awakened her recollection of the
past; it is as well that it should be recalled to-day as to-morrow.
Come, Bertha, we will go to her."

Madeleine and Bertha entered the room together, but the ever cowardly
Bertha drew back, and Madeleine approached the bed alone. The countess
opened her eyes, looked at her a moment, as though to be quite certain
of her identity, then turned her face to the pillow and murmured, "Where
is Bertha?"

"Bertha is here," said Madeleine, motioning Bertha to take her place, as
she drew back.

Madeleine felt that the countess had turned from her because her
presence was painful; with a light step, but a heart once more grown
heavy, she withdrew.

Bertha stood by her aunt's side without daring to disturb her by a word.
After a time the countess unclosed her eyes again and looked around the
room; then, gazing at Bertha, said slowly,--

"It all comes back,--it was like a frightful dream at first,--but the
reality is more terrible! Bertha,--Bertha,--I have so little left! _You_
love me? _You_ will not forsake me?"

Bertha had never before heard her imperious aunt make an appeal to any
human being; what wonder that she was melted?

The countess resumed, with increasing agitation, "You were to have gone
back with me to Brittany,--you, and Maurice, and his"--

There came a break,--she could not name her dead son. Death to her was
the harsh blow dealt by a merciless hand, snatching its victim away in
retributive wrath,--not the wise and mild summons that bids suffering
mortality exchange a circumscribed, lower life for a larger, higher,
happier existence.

It was some time before Madame de Gramont could continue; then she said,
"I must go back, Bertha! I cannot die out of those old walls! It was
you, you who lured me from them. We will return to them. You will go
with us, Bertha?"

"I will," replied Bertha, though her heart sank as she uttered the
words. She had thought that the project of returning to