"What!" cried Mme. de Gernancé, "was it he? Oh, what have you done, Elinor? How I pity you! Now you see how your folly has destroyed your peace of mind and happiness, and by a punishment that you richly deserve, it is not even possible for you to make any amends. Henceforth you will be a wife without a right to bear the name, and a mother, though you scarcely dare to have it known. You will spend your life blushing for the most natural and honorable of feelings, and you, so beautiful, so brilliant, so richly gifted by nature and fortune, have by your own perverse act deprived yourself of the happiness the meanest of women is entitled to enjoy, the happiness of having husband and child, the sweetest of all! But there is more in it even than that. I can read your heart; it is useless for your pride to try to conceal the fact from your friend and from yourself. Your heart is no longer in your own keeping; you love, you have given it--" At this, Mme. de Roselis hid her face in her hands; the tears flowed from her eyes. "Dear Elinor," said Mme. de Gernancé kindly, drawing nearer to her and taking her in her arms, "when I see you weep, I realize I love you too well to be your judge. Don't grieve any more for an evil that may be remedied. Let us hope that Léon is still alive, and that all may yet be condoned." But at that word Elinor's tears ceased. "Condoned!" she said proudly. "No, my dear, I do not think I should easily consent to what you call condoning it. I have done wrong, it is true, but not from weakness. I did it on purpose, after long consideration of the troubles I had borne. It is true I grieve over the fate of a man who does interest me, and whose life I have disturbed and perhaps shortened. I cannot be happy again until I know he is not dead; but as for giving up my independence, and by this change of mind letting people think I had been either weak or inconsequent this I shall never consent to." Mme. de Gernancé saw that it was not the moment to attack either the prejudices or the pride of her friend; from that moment, however, Léon became their one subject of conversation, and by thus constantly talking about him, Elinor unconsciously strengthened the inclination she already felt for him. For her part Mme. de Gernancé would draw an attractive picture of the happiness she herself enjoyed, and which she assured her friend might easily be hers as well. Elinor, now touched, and somewhat shaken in her resolution, would smile at her friend's advice, and anon, returning to her cherished chimera of liberty, would wax indignant at the suggestion that she should give it up, after the sacrifices she had made in its name. Still, on one point the two friends were ever agreed, and that was in wishing that Léon might return.