“Listen, my good angel,” she said. “We will never separate. Shall it not be so? You have nothing to do: you have told me so already. We will never separate. If you would not remain here, I will follow wherever you wish to go. If you desire it, I will quit the theatre,--every thing.” “I do not wish you to make any sacrifice for me. That is not necessary to my happiness.” “No sacrifice! I have never clung to any thing, for I have never had any thing to love: now I must cling to you, for I love you. I have never had but one dream, and that was to be loved as you love me. I believed that I should never be thus blessed. I was wrong: was I not?” “Like you, I have a full heart,” replied Eusebe. “I have no words to express all I feel.” “This love, too, will render me good, as well as happy,” said Adéonne. “I have told my maid that she could receive her lover: this was prompted by the new feelings kindled in my heart. Thus good often results from intentions that are evil. If your friends had not told you that I was a worthless creature, you would not have ventured to visit me. If you had not come, I should never have loved anybody. Do not you believe in a good and overruling Providence, my dear Eusebe?” “When I was a child, my mother taught me to pray. Later in life, my father told me that if any man believed in God, he would do many things of which he would not otherwise be capable.” “Your father, it would seem, is a queer man. But no matter. I love him because he is your father. He wishes you to be instructed: he is right. I will teach you life as it is. I know it thoroughly. I have been so unfortunate! We women are wiser than you men: we know every thing without the process of learning. When I think of your anxiety to distinguish the false from the true, I could laugh, if I did not love you so dearly. There is nothing true, my dear Eusebe, but love!” CHAPTER XXV. Eusebe had ample time to meditate upon the aphorism so boldly announced by Adéonne. For a whole year they lived and loved together. The young provincial had forgotten the great world, which, on its part, troubled itself but little about him. The comédienne loved with all the fire of a passionate nature. But she experienced another sentiment in harmony with love. The docile character of Eusebe, and his complete ignorance of life, rendered Adéonne the arbiter of his destiny, and she, whose past career had been worse than a blank, was proud to have an acknowledged _protégé_. She did not, however, abuse the ascendency she had obtained. More than once, upon her knees before Eusebe, she had said,-- “Oh, how good you are not to wish to be the master!”