“Pardon me if I always see something to fear. We have been so frightfully tried, so unjustly!” He interrupted her, for these complaints did not please him. “For a long time,” he said quickly, “Mademoiselle Phillis has inspired me with a deep sentiment of esteem and tenderness; I have not been able to see her so courageous, so brave in adversity, so decided in her character, so good to you, so charming, without loving her, and I have come to ask you to give her to me as my wife.” At Saniel’s words, Madame Cormier’s hands began to tremble, and the trembling increased. “Is it possible?” she murmured, beginning to cry. “So great a happiness for my daughter! Such an honor for us, for us, for us!” “I love her.” “Forgive me if happiness makes me forget the conventionalities, but I lose my head. We are so unhappy that our souls are weak against joy. Perhaps I should hide my daughter’s sentiments; but I cannot help telling you that this esteem, this tenderness of which you speak, is felt by her. I discovered it long ago, although she did not tell me. Your request, then, can only be received with joy by mother, as well as daughter.” This was said brokenly, evidently from an overflowing heart. But all at once her face saddened. “I must talk to you sincerely,” she said. “You are young, I am not; and my age makes it a duty for me not to yield to any impulse. We are unfortunates, you are one of the happy; you will soon be rich and famous. Is it wise to burden your life with a wife who is in my daughter’s position?” With the exception of a few words, this was Phillis’s answer. He answered the mother as he had answered the daughter. “It is not for you that I speak,” said Madame Cormier. “I should not permit myself to give you advice; it is in placing myself at the point of view of my daughter that I, her mother, with the experience of my age, should watch over her future. Is it certain that in the struggles of life you will never suffer from this marriage, not because my daughter will not make you happy--from this side I am easy--but because the situation that fate has made for us will weigh on you and fetter you? I know my daughter-her delicacy; her uneasy susceptibility, that of the unfortunate; her pride, that of the irreproachable. It would be a wound for her that would make happiness give way to unhappiness, for she could not bear contempt.” “If that is in human nature, it is not in mine; I give you my word.” He explained how he meant to arrange their life, and when she understood that she was to live with them, she clasped her hands and exclaimed, “Oh, my God, who hast taken my son, how good thou art to give me another!” CHAPTER XXXIX. CONCESSION TO CONSCIENCE