perturbed spirit into the abstracted quiet and bitter silence wherein he
lived, and which she sought to cheer by a thousand happy devices. She
did not let him think that she was giving up anything for him; no word or
act of hers could have suggested to him the sacrifices she had made. He
knew them, still he did not know them in their fulness; he was grateful,
but his gratitude did not compass the splendid self-effacing devotion
with which she denied herself the glorious career that had lain before
her. Morbid and self-centred, he could not understand. Since her return
from Quebec she had sought to give a little touch of gaiety to their
life, and she had not the heart to interfere with his constant insistence
on the little dignities of the position of Seigneur, ironical as they all
were in her eyes. She had sacrificed everything; and since another also
had sacrificed himself to give her husband the honours and estate he
possessed, the game should be delicately played to the unseen end.

So it had gone on until the coming of the deputation with the testimonial
and the gift. She had proposed the gaieties of the occasion to Louis
with so simple a cheerfulness, that he had no idea of the torture it
meant to her; no realisation of how she would be brought face to face
with the life that she had given up for his sake. But neither he nor she
was aware of one thing, that the beautiful embossed address contained an
appeal to her to return to the world of song which she had renounced,
to go forth once more and contribute to the happiness of humanity.

When, therefore, in the drawing-room of the Manor, the address was read
to her, and this appeal rang upon her ears, she felt herself turn dizzy
and faint: her whole life seemed to reel backwards to all she had lost,
and the tyranny of the present bore down upon her with a cruel weight.
It needed all her courage and all her innate strength to rule herself to
composure. For an instant the people in the room were a confused mass,