rate upon
it--but no, every day the attacks change character and leave me without
defence; my sorrows are not one, they are manifold. Ah! my friend--"
she cried, leaning her head upon my shoulder, and not continuing her
confidence. "What will become of me? Oh, what shall I do?" she said
presently, struggling with thoughts she did not express. "How can I
resist? He will kill me! No, I will kill myself--but that would be
a crime! Escape? yes, but my children! Separate from him? how, after
fifteen years of marriage, how could I ever tell my parents that I will
not live with him? for if my father and mother came here he would be
calm, polite, intelligent, judicious. Besides, can married women look to
fathers or mothers? Do they not belong body and soul to their husbands?
I could live tranquil if not happy--I have found strength in my chaste
solitude, I admit it; but if I am deprived of this negative happiness
I too shall become insane. My resistance is based on powerful reasons
which are not personal to myself. It is a crime to give birth to poor
creatures condemned to endless suffering. Yet my position raises serious
questions, so serious that I dare not decide them alone; I cannot be
judge and party both. To-morrow I will go to Tours and consult my new
confessor, the Abbe Birotteau--for my dear and virtuous Abbe de la Berge
is dead," she said, interrupting herself. "Though he was severe, I miss
and shall always miss his apostolic power. His successor is an angel of
goodness, who pities but does not reprimand. Still, all courage draws
fresh life from the heart of religion; what soul is not strengthened by
the voice of the Holy Spirit? My God," she said, drying her tears
and raising her eyes to heaven, "for what sin am I thus punished?--I
believe, yes, Felix, I believe it, we must pass through a fiery furnace
before we reach the saints, the just made perfect of the upper spheres.
Must I keep silence? Am I forbidden, oh, my God, to cry to the heart of
a friend? Do I love him too well?" She pressed me to her heart as though
she feared to lose me. "Who will solve my doubts? My conscience does not
reproach me. The stars shine from above on men; may not the soul, the
human star, shed its light upon a friend, if we go to him with pure
thoughts?"

I listened to this dreadful cry in silence, holding her moist hand
in mine that was still more moist. I pressed it with a force to which
Henriette replied with an equal pressure.

"Whe