t and look pale at my words?' With looks of
alarm and confused thoughts, fearing the countess suspected her love,
Helena still replied: 'Pardon me, madam, you are not my mother; the
count Rousillon cannot be my brother, nor I your daughter.' 'Yet,
Helena,' said the countess, 'you might be my daughter-in-law; and I am
afraid that is what you mean to be, the words mother and daughter so
disturb you. Helena, do you love my son?' 'Good madam, pardon me,' said
the affrighted Helena. Again the countess repeated her question. 'Do
you love my son?' 'Do not you love him, madam?' said Helena. The
countess replied: 'Give me not this evasive answer, Helena. Come, come,
disclose the state of your affections, for your love has to the full
appeared.' Helena on her knees now owned her love, and with shame and
terror implored the pardon of her noble mistress; and with words
expressive of the sense she had of the inequality between their
fortunes, she protested Bertram did not know she loved him, comparing
her humble unaspiring love to a poor Indian, who adores the sun that
looks upon his worshipper, but knows of him no more. The countess asked
Helena if she had not lately an intent to go to Paris? Helena owned the
design she had formed in her mind, when she heard Lafeu speak of the
king's illness. 'This was your motive for wishing to go to Paris,' said
the countess, 'was it? Speak truly.' Helena honestly answered: 'My lord
your son made me to think of this; else Paris, and the medicine, and
the king, had from the conversation of my thoughts been absent then.'
The countess heard the whole of this confession without saying a word
either of approval or of blame, but she strictly questioned Helena as
to the probability of the medicine being useful to the king. She found
that it was the most prized by Gerard de Narbon of all he possessed,
and that he had given it to his daughter on his deathbed; and
remembering the solemn promise she had made at that awful hour in
regard to this young maid, whose destiny, and the life of the king
himself, seemed to depend on the execution of a project (which though
conceived by the fond, suggestions of a loving maiden's thoughts, the
countess knew not but it might be the unseen workings of Providence to
bring to pass the recovery of the king, and to lay the foundation of
the future fortunes of Gerard de Narbon's daughter), free leave she
gave to Helena to pursue her own way, and generously furnished her with