has made
many sacrifices. Perhaps she will love you when you have ceased to love
her!"

"Dear angel," I said, "let me ask the question you asked me; how is it
that you know these things?"

"Every sorrow teaches a lesson, and I have suffered on so many points
that my knowledge is vast."

My servant had heard the order given, and thinking we should return by
the terraces he held my horse ready for me in the avenue. Arabella's
dog had scented the horse, and his mistress, drawn by very natural
curiosity, had followed the animal through the woods to the avenue.

"Go and make your peace," said Henriette, smiling without a tinge of
sadness. "Say to Lady Dudley how much she mistakes my intention; I
wished to show her the true value of the treasure which has fallen to
her; my heart holds none but kind feelings, above all neither anger nor
contempt. Explain to her that I am her sister, and not her rival."

"I shall not go," I said.

"Have you never discovered," she said with lofty pride, "that certain
propitiations are insulting? Go!"

I rode towards Lady Dudley wishing to know the state of her mind. "If
she would only be angry and leave me," I thought, "I could return to
Clochegourde."

The dog led me to an oak, from which, as I came up, Arabella galloped
crying out to me, "Come! away! away!" All that I could do was to follow
her to Saint Cyr, which we reached about midnight.

"That lady is in perfect health," said Arabella as she dismounted.

Those who know her can alone imagine the satire contained in that
remark, dryly said in a tone which meant, "I should have died!"

"I forbid you to utter any of your sarcasms about Madame de Mortsauf," I
said.

"Do I displease your Grace in remarking upon the perfect health of one
so dear to your precious heart? Frenchwomen hate, so I am told, even
their lover's dog. In England we love all that our masters love; we hate
all they hate, because we are flesh of their flesh. Permit me therefore
to love this lady as much as you yourself love her. Only, my dear
child," she added, clasping me in her arms which were damp with rain,
"if you betray me, I shall not be found either lying down or standing
up, not in a carriage with liveried lackeys, nor on horseback on the
moors of Charlemagne, nor on any other moor beneath the skies, nor in my
own bed, nor beneath a roof of my forefathers; I shall not be anywhere,
for I will live no longer. I was born in Lancashire, a country where
wom