ealth, happiness, and gayety.

It was not only physical calm that she gave him by a mysterious affinity
concerning which his studies told him nothing, but of which he did not
the less feel all the force; it was also a moral calm.

There were duties he owed her, and terribly heavy were those he owed her
mother and Florentin.

He did all he could for Florentin, but this was not all that he owed
them. Florentin was in prison; Madame Cormier fell into a mournful
despair, growing weaker each day; and Phillis, in spite of her elasticity
and courage, bent beneath the weight of injustice.

How much the situation would be changed if he married her--for them, and
for him!

When Phillis was a little recovered from her great surprise, she asked
him:

"When did you decide on this marriage?"

He did not wish to prevaricate, and he answered that it was at that
instant that the idea came to him, exact enough and strong enough to give
form to the ideas that had been floating in his brain for several months.

"At least, have you considered it? Have you not yielded to an impulse of
love?"

"Would it be better to yield to a long, rational calculation? I marry you
because I love you, and also because I am certain that without you I
cannot be happy. Frankly, I acknowledge that I need you, your tenderness,
your love, your strength of character, your equal temper, your invincible
faith in hope, which, for me as I am organized, is worth the largest
dot."

"It is exactly because I have no dot to bring you. When you were at the
last extremity, desperate and crushed, I might ask to become the wife of
the poor village doctor that you were going to be; but to-day, in your
position, above all in the position that you will soon occupy, is poor
little Phillis worthy of you? You give me the greatest joy that I can
ever know, of which I have only dreamed in telling myself that it would
be folly to hope to have it realized. But just that gives me the strength
to beg you to reflect, and to consider whether you will ever regret this
moment of rapture that makes me so happy."

"I have reflected, and what you say proves better than anything that I do
not deceive myself. I want a wife who loves me, and you are that wife."

"More than I can tell you at this moment, wild with happiness, but not
more than I shall prove to you in the continuance of our love."

"Besides, dearest, do not have any illusions on the splendors of this
position of which y