Madeleine involuntarily;
but the words were hardly spoken when she repented them.

"I know it; M. de Bois kept you informed of my movements. But, ah,
Madeleine, how could you be aware of my anguish, and so cruelly refuse a
sign by which I might learn that you were near me?"

"I had no alternative. I could not have carried out the project I had
formed, and which"--Madeleine paused, and looked around her somewhat
proudly, then added, "and which you now see crowned with success, if I
had run the risk of your tracing me. You would have opposed my
undertaking,--do you not feel that you would? Answer that question,
before you reproach me."

"Yes, you are right, Madeleine; I fear I should have opposed your
enterprise. And yet, believe me, I honor it,--I honor you all the more
on account of that very undertaking. Thank Heaven, I have lived long
enough in this land, where men (and women too) have sufficient courage
to use their lives, and senseless idlers are the exceptions; to realize
that man's work and woman's work are alike glorious; that labor is
dignified by the hand that toils; and that you, Madeleine, the daughter
of a duke,--you, the duchess-mantua-maker, have reached a higher
altitude through that very labor than your birth could ever command."

"Maurice,--my cousin, my dear, dear cousin!--these words compensate me
for all my trials and struggles. I hardly dared to dream that I should
hear them for your lips. Ah, to-day,--to-day when I am about to
accomplish one of the ends for which I have most earnestly
toiled,--to-day when I shall become full possessor of this mansion,
henceforth a home of my own,--this day will ever be full of precious
memories to me; it will be written upon my book of life moistened with
the sweetest tears I ever shed,--tears of gratitude and joy."

"You are to purchase this magnificent mansion? Is it possible?" asked
Maurice, for the first time looking around him. "How can you have
achieved this, Madeleine? You have had some friend who aided you,
and"--he paused abruptly.

"I _have_ had friends, Maurice, warm and devoted friends," answered
Madeleine, simply.

"But," he resumed, and hesitated, "how--how has all this been brought
about? Ah, Madeleine, I have not forgotten, I cannot forget the sad
revelation you made to me in Brittany. He whom you love,--it is
_he_,--_he_ who has protected you, who has enjoyed the exquisite
happiness of aiding you by his advice, and by his own means perhaps