clever women would have done, to govern the count by putting
calculation into her conduct,--a sort of prostitution by which noble
souls feel degraded. Silently she turned away, to console her despair
with Etienne.

"Tete-Dieu! shall I never be loved?" cried the count, seeing the tears
in his wife's eyes as she left the room.

Thus incessantly threatened, motherhood became to the poor woman a
passion which assumed the intensity that women put into their guilty
affections. By a species of occult communion, the secret of which is
in the hearts of mothers, the child comprehended the peril that
threatened him and dreaded the approach of his father. The terrible
scene of which he had been a witness remained in his memory, and
affected him like an illness; at the sound of the count's step his
features contracted, and the mother's ear was not so alert as the
instinct of her child. As he grew older this faculty created by terror
increased, until, like the savages of America, Etienne could
distinguish his father's step and hear his voice at immense distances.
To witness the terror with which the count inspired her thus shared by
her child made Etienne the more precious to the countess; their union
was so strengthened that like two flowers on one twig they bent to the
same wind, and lifted their heads with the same hope. In short, they
were one life.

When the count again left home Jeanne was pregnant. This time she gave
birth in due season, and not without great suffering, to a stout boy,
who soon became the living image of his father, so that the hatred of
the count for his first-born was increased by this event. To save her
cherished child the countess agreed to all the plans which her husband