After those stormy emotions which accompany the doing of a desperate deed, there comes in the minds of men a dead calm. The still small voice of Wisdom, unheard while Passion's tempest was raging, whispers grave counsel or mild reproof; and Folly, who, seen athwart the storm-cloud, sublime in the glare of the lightning, seemed inspiration, veils her face in the clear, common light of day. Let it not for a moment be supposed that with M. Lenoble time and reflection brought repentance in their train. It was not so. The love which he felt for his English wife was no capricious emotion; it was a passion deep and strong as destiny. The worst that afterthought could reveal to him was the fact that the step he had taken was a very desperate one. Before him lay an awful necessity--the necessity of going to Beaubocage to tell those who loved him how their air-built castles had been shattered by this deed of his. The letters from Cydalise--nay, indeed, more than one letter from his mother, with whom letter-writing was an exceptional business--had of late expressed much anxiety. In less than a month the marriage-contract would be made ready for his signature. Every hour's delay was a new dishonour. He told his wife that he must go home for a few days; and she prepared his travelling gear, with a sweet dutiful care that seemed to him like the ministration of an angel. "My darling girl, can I ever repay you for the happiness you have brought me!" he exclaimed, as he watched the slight girlish figure flitting about the room, busy with the preparations for his journey. And then he thought of Madelon Frehlter--commonplace, stiff, and unimpressionable--the most conventional of school-girls, heavy in face, in figure, in step, in mind even, as it had seemed to him, despite his sister's praises. He had been too generous to tell Susan of his engagement, of the brilliant prospects he forfeited by his marriage, or the risk which he ran of offending his father by that rash step. But to-night, when he thought of Madelon's dulness and commonness, it seemed to him as if Susan had in manner rescued him from a dreadful fate--as maidens were rescued from sea-monsters in the days of Perseus and Heracles. "Madelon is not unlike a whale," he thought. "They tell us that whales are of a sagacious and amiable temper,--and Cydalise was always talking of Madelon's good sense and amiablity. I am sure it is quite as easy to believe in the unparalleled virtues of the whale as in the unparalleled virtues of Madelon Frehlter."