Wife and daughter evidently were not in league against him; she, the
mother of his child, shared his anxiety and doubt. Tears were in her
eyes, and he had only been impatient!--she had passed so quickly to
an apprehension that was grievous, Adolphus stood the image of dismay.
Those three, so entirely one, seemed to have been thrust apart by a
resistless evil Fate who had some malignant purpose to serve.

Not now for the first time did Pauline see that the young face
before her was pale, and grave with a gravity once unknown to it. It
might be, that, for the first time, she was asking herself outright
if this prison-life was to serve Elizabeth as it had served the wife
of Laval,--but not for the first time was she now visited by a
foreboding that pointed to this fear.

"It is the prison," said she.

"Elizabeth, is it so? Is this house going to be the death of you?"
asked Montier, abruptly,--referring the point with stern authority,
to the last person who would be likely to acknowledge the danger of
which he spoke.

"If you think _so_, papa and mamma, I must give up the voyage, just
to prove that you are mistaken," answered she.

"Look at her, Adolphus!" said Pauline; "remember what she was a year
ago! She's not the same now. I can see it. Strange if I could not!
Young people are different from old. I thought this place would
never seem like home to me, but I found out my mistake."

"I knew you would," said Adolphus, quickly.