n so low! But I
have borne the very utmost that I can support! Now it shall end! I will
return with your father to our old home, that we may die there in peace!
If you are not lost to all sense of filial duty, you will not forsake
your father, but accompany him to Brittany; he will henceforth need a
son!"

Maurice avoided making a direct reply by saying, "Have the goodness to
excuse me, madame; I will return in a few moments."

He descended the stair with slower steps than was his wont when on his
way to Madeleine. Bertha was still sitting in the carriage beside her
cousin. Maurice read anxious expectation, mingled with some faint hope,
in Madeleine's countenance. He entered the carriage before he ventured
to speak.

"Your father, Maurice?" she asked eagerly.

"I think he is better; the attack does not appear as severe as the
former one must have been."

"Did you speak to your grandmother of me? Did you plead for me, and
entreat that she would allow me to go to Count Tristan?"

"She is not to be moved, Madeleine; she is implacable."

"But if your father should desire to see me?" persisted Madeleine.

"He did desire,--he even asked for you,--but my grandmother was
inflexible."

"Maurice, I must,--must go to him, if he wishes to see me. I understand
his wants so well,--I must, must go to him! Madame de Gramont may treat
me as she will; but if he wants me, I must go to him!"

Madeleine was so carried away by her strong impulse to reach one to whom
she knew her presence was essential, that she was less reasonable than
usual, and it was with some difficulty that Maurice pacified her. But to
resign herself to the inevitable, however hard, was one of the first
duties of her life, and after awhile her composure was partially
restored, and, bidding Bertha and Maurice adieu, she drove home.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE NEW ENGLAND NURSE.

Madeleine, in spite of the positive denial she had received, experienced
as strong a desire to be near her afflicted relative as though his
yearning for her presence drew her to him by some species of powerful
magnetism. The wildest plans careered through her brain. She thought of
the days in Paris when she had so successfully assumed the garb of the
_soeur de bon secours_, and kept nightly vigils beside the bed of
Maurice. Was there no disguise under which she could make her way to the
count? But the doubt that she could elude the countess's scrutinizing
eyes,--the certainty o