estored to health. Bertha stole to her side, but the young
girl's good intentions were oozing away every moment. The probability is
that that she would not have had the courage to introduce the subject at
all had not the countess asked,--

"Have you heard of the unnatural conduct of Maurice? Do you know that my
own grandson abandons me?"

"I have heard," replied Bertha, hesitatingly. "Oh! what are we to do?
How could you ever travel to Brittany alone?"

"Alone?" cried the countess, catching hold of the blue silk curtains
that draped her bed, and raising herself by clinging to them. "Alone? Do
_you_, too, forsake me? But what else could I expect when my grandson,
my only child left, has abandoned me?"

Bertha's determination was put to flight by her aunt's woful look as she
spoke these words with despairing fierceness, while she grasped the
curtains more tightly and bore heavily upon them for support.

These draperies were suspended over the centre of the bed from a massive
gilded ornament, shaped to represent a huge arrow, and the countess in
her agitation gathered the folds around her, and hung upon them in her
efforts to sit up.

"Oh, no, aunt, I have not forsaken you," returned Bertha. "I will go
with you; but what shall we do alone? M. de Bois refuses to go unless
Maurice and Madeleine go."

"Does M. de Bois expect to dictate to _me_?" demanded Madame de Gramont,
haughtily. "Let him remain; you will go with me, Bertha, and I shall
hire a courier."

"I am afraid we will not be able to find a courier in America," Bertha
ventured to suggest.

"Then we will go without one! We will go the instant I am able; and I
feel so much stronger at this moment that I could start at once. It is
settled that we go, and I defy Maurice or any one else to keep me."

Madeleine had been visiting the working-room, and, without being aware
of what had just taken place, she now entered her aunt's chamber. Madame
de Gramont's convulsed features, and her singular attitude as she sat up
in the centre of the bed, tightly grasping the curtains, which had been
drawn from their usual position, impressed Madeleine so painfully, that
she was running toward her; when the countess, raising herself up, with
sudden strength, exclaimed,--"Madeleine de Gramont, keep from me!--do
not come near me! All my sorrow has come through you!--Go! go!"

She gave such a violent strain upon the curtains, as she passionately
uttered these words, that Madele