"Will she consent?"

"She will have to consent, Bourrienne."

Duroc came in at a late hour that evening, and Bourrienne told him, word
for word, the ultimatum of the first consul.

Duroc listened to him attentively; but, as Bourrienne went on with his
communication, his countenance grew darker and darker.

"If such be the case," he exclaimed at last, when Bourrienne had got
through, "if Bonaparte will do nothing more than that for his
son-in-law, I must forego a marriage with Hortense, however painful it
may be to do so: and then, instead of going to Toulon, I can remain in
Paris." And, as he ceased to speak, Duroc took up his hat, without a
trace of excitement or concern, and departed.

That same evening, Josephine received from her husband his full consent
to the marriage of her daughter to Louis Bonaparte.

On that very evening, too, Josephine informed her daughter that Duroc
had not withstood the test, and that he had now relinquished her,
through ambition, as, through ambition, he had previously feigned
to love her.

Hortense gazed at her mother with tearless eyes. She had not a word of
complaint or reproach to utter; she was conscious merely that a
thunder-bolt had just fallen, and had forever dashed to atoms her love,
her hopes, her future, and her happiness.