"I think and I know," answered the Provencal, gravely, and disregarding
the taunt, "that if you had deigned to render me--poor exile that I am!--
the most enviable of men, you had still been the heiress of Laughton."

"So you have said and urged," said Lucretia, with evident curiosity in
her voice; "yet how, and by what art,--wise and subtle as you are,--could
you have won my uncle's consent?"

"That is my secret," returned Dalibard, gloomily; "and since the madness
I indulged is forever over; since I have so schooled my heart that
nothing, despite your sarcasm, save an affectionate interest which I may
call paternal rests there,--let us pass from this painful subject. Oh,
my dear pupil, be warned in time; know love for what it really is, in the
dark and complicated history of actual life,--a brief enchantment, not to
be disdained, but not to be considered the all-in all. Look round the
world; contemplate all those who have married from passion: ten years
afterwards, whither has the passion flown? With a few, indeed, where
there is community of object and character, new excitements, new aims and
hopes, spring up; and having first taken root in passion, the passion
continues to shoot out in their fresh stems and fibres. But deceive
yourself not; there is no such community between you and Mainwaring.
What you call his goodness, you will learn hereafter to despise as
feeble; and what in reality is your mental power he soon, too soon, will
shudder at as unwomanly and hateful."

"Hold!" cried Lucretia, tremulously. "Hold! and if he does, I shall owe
his hate to you,--to your lessons; to your deadly influence!"

"Lucretia, no; the seeds were in you. Can cultivation force from the
soil that which it is against the nature of the soil to bear?"