we gave him a shock. Our whole fortunes were in peril, so the thing
was serious, you see. I could not live if your affection did not make
me insensible to troubles that I should once have thought too hard to
bear. At this moment I have but one fear left, but one misery to
dread--to lose the love that has made me feel glad to live. Everything
else is as nothing to me compared with our love; I care for nothing
else, for you are all the world to me. If I feel glad to be rich, it
is for your sake. To my shame be it said, I think of my lover before
my father. Do you ask why? I cannot tell you, but all my life is in
you. My father gave me a heart, but you have taught it to beat. The
whole world may condemn me; what does it matter if I stand acquitted
in your eyes, for you have no right to think ill of me for the faults
which a tyrannous love has forced me to commit for you! Do you think
me an unnatural daughter? Oh! no, no one could help loving such a dear
kind father as ours. But how could I hide the inevitable consequences
of our miserable marriages from him? Why did he allow us to marry when
we did? Was it not his duty to think for us and foresee for us? To-day
I know he suffers as much as we do, but how can it be helped? And as
for comforting him, we could not comfort him in the least. Our
resignation would give him more pain and hurt him far more than
complaints and upbraidings. There are times in life when everything
turns to bitterness."

Eugene was silent, the artless and sincere outpouring made an
impression on him.

Parisian women are often false, intoxicated with vanity, selfish and
self-absorbed, frivolous and shallow; yet of all women, when they
love, they sacrifice their personal feelings to their passion; they
rise but so much the higher for all the pettiness overcome in their