er it was written, and found
him in a state of such torpid despondency that any summons to action,
even the most painful, was a blessing. He had felt that the only chance
of combating his sorrow, and preventing its obtaining full mastery over
all his faculties, was to work off the sense of depression by hard
study,--to battle against it with the arms of some engrossing
occupation; but how could he spur himself up to study without an
object?--and he was as far as ever from obtaining his father's consent
to fitting himself for the bar, or for any other professional pursuit.
No,--there was only one pursuit left open to him, the pursuit of
pleasure, and he had not sufficiently recovered from his late shock to
start off in chase of that illusive phantom. Bertha's letter roused him
out of this miserable, mind-paralyzing apathy. In the very next train
which left for Rennes he was on his way back to Brittany.

It was the fourth day after Madeleine's departure. Those days had seemed
months to Bertha, the weariest months of her brief, glad life. She was
standing at a window that commanded the road,--her favorite post, and
the only locality where she ever remained quiet for any length of
time,--when the carriage in which Maurice was seated drove up the
avenue. With a joyful exclamation she rushed out of the room, darted
down the stair, through the hall, into the porch, and had greeted
Maurice before any one but the old gardener knew that he had arrived.

"You have heard from her?" were her cousin's first words, gaspingly
uttered.

"No, not a line. She will never write; she will never come back! O
Maurice! I have lost all hope," sighed Bertha.

"Dear Bertha, we will find her! Let her go where she may, I will find
her!--be sure of that. I will not rest until I do."

His grandmother, attracted by Bertha's exultant ejaculation, had
followed her, though with more deliberate steps, and now appeared. The
cruel words the countess had spoken to Madeleine were ringing in the
ears of Maurice, and he saluted his noble relative respectfully, but not
with his usual warmth.

"I am glad you have come back to us, Maurice. Bertha is so lonely."

The lips of Maurice parted, but some internal warning checked the bitter
words before they formed themselves into sound. He bowed gravely, and,
entering the house, remarked to Bertha,--

"You wrote that all the servants had been examined?"

"Yes, all; and they know nothing of Madeleine's flight."