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“Pride!” he echoed in a bitter, hollow voice. “My pride, Madame!”

She went on without noticing him:–

“They have been here this morning–both of them. He followed her, as he always does. He had a desperate look which warned me. Afterward I found the note upon the floor. Now will you read it?”

“Good God!” he cried, as he fell into his chair again, his brow sinking into his hands.

“I have read it,” said Madame, with a tragic gesture, “and I choose to place one stumbling-block in the path that would lead her to an old age like mine. I do not like your Americans; but I have sometimes seen in her girl’s face a proud, heroic endurance of the misery she has brought upon herself, and it has moved me. And this let ter–you should read it, to see how such a man can plead. It is a passionate cry of despair–it is a poem in itself. I, myself, read it with sobs in my throat and tears in my eyes. ‘If you love me!–if you have ever loved me!’ he cries, ‘for God’s sake!–for love’s sake!–if there is love on earth–if there is a God in heaven, you will not let me implore you in vain!’ And his prayer is that she will leave Paris with him tonight–. to-night! There! Monsieur, I have done. Behold the letter! Take it or leave it, as you please.” And she flung it upon the floor at his feet.

She paused a moment, wondering what he would do.

He bent down and picked the letter up.

“I will take it,” he said.

All at once he had become calm, and when he rose and uttered his last words to her, there was upon his face a faint smile.

“I, too,” he said,–“I, too, Madame, suffer from a mad and hopeless passion, and thus can comprehend the bitterness of M. Edmondstone’s pangs. I, too, would implore in the name of love and God,–if I might, but I may not.” And so he took his departure.

Until evening Bertha did not see him. The afternoon she spent alone and in writing letters, and having completed and sealed the last, she went to her couch and tried to sleep. One entering the room, as she lay upon the violet cushions, her hands at her sides, her eyes closed, might well have been shocked. Her spotless pallor, the fine sharpness of her face, the shadows under her eyes, her motionlessness, would have excused the momentary feeling. But she was up and dressed for dinner when M. Villefort presented himself. Spring though it was, she was attired in a high, close dress of black velvet, and he found her almost cowering over the open fire-place. Strangely enough, too, she fancied that when she looked up at him she saw him shiver, as if he were struck with a slight chill also.

“You should not wear that,” he said, with a half smile at her gown.

“Why?” she asked.

“It makes you so white–so much like a too early lily. But–but perhaps you thought of going out?”

“No,” she answered; “not to-night.”

He came quite close to her.

“If you are not too greatly fatigued,” he said, “it would give me happiness to take you with me on my errand to your mother’s house. I must carry there my little birthday gift to your sister,” smiling again.

An expression of embarrassment showed itself upon her face.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “to think that I had forgotten it! She will feel as if I did not care for her at all.”

She seemed for the moment quite unhappy.

“Let me see what you have chosen.”

He drew from his pocket a case and opened it.

“Oh,” she cried, “how pretty and how suitable for a girl!”

They were the prettiest, most airy set of pearls imaginable.

She sat and looked at them for a few seconds thoughtfully, and then handed them back.

“You are very good, and Jenny will be in ecstasies,” she said.