ould not see that poor, wretched,
brain-shattered sufferer, that proud man bowed to the dust, clinging to
her with such a strange, perplexed, yet steady grasp, and know that she
could no longer tend, amuse, and soothe him! Her composure was forsaking
her, and she could only hurriedly whisper to Maurice,--

"I will pack your father's clothes; make him comprehend that we have no
alternative; reconcile him if you can. Since he must go, it had better
be at once; the countess is no doubt anxiously expecting him."

She passed into the count's room, gathered together all his wearing
apparel, and knelt down beside his trunk. Her heart swelled as though
it would burst; she bowed her head upon the trunk she was about to open,
and sobbed aloud!

Madeleine's tears were not like Bertha's,--mere summer rain which sprang
to her eyes with every passing emotion, and fell in sun-broken showers
that freshened and brightened her own spirit. Madeleine seldom wept, and
when the tears came, they sprang up from the very depth of her true
heart, in a hot, bitter current which was less like the bubbling of a
fountain than the lava bursting from a volcano. It is ever thus with
powerful, yet self-controlled natures, and Madeleine's equanimity in the
midst of trials which would have prostrated others, was not a lack of
keen, quick sensibility, but an evidence of the supremacy she had gained
by discipline over her passions.

Madeleine wept and wept, forgetting the work before her, the time that
was passing, the necessity for action! All the tears that she might have
shed during the last few weeks, if it were her nature to weep as most
women weep, now rushed forth in one passionate torrent. She did not hear
a step approaching; she was hardly conscious of the encircling arm that
raised her from the ground, nor was she startled by the voice that
said,--

"Madeleine! my own Madeleine! Is it you sobbing thus?"

"I feel _this!_ O Maurice, I feel _this!_ My aunt has never had power to
make me feel so much since that day in the little _chalet_ when my eyes
were opened,--when she cast me off, and I stood alone in the world."

"Ah Madeleine, dearest and best beloved, if you had only loved me
then,--if I could only have taught you to love me,--you would not have
stood alone! I should have battled against every sorrow that could come
near you; or, at least, have borne it with you. O Madeleine, why could
you not love me?"

For one instant Madeleine was