"Otherwise, since I accepted my position, I should have augmented it by submission, instead of causing you constant self-reproach by my haughty and taciturn coldness. I should have endeavored to console you for a fearful malady, by only remembering your misfortune. By degrees I should have become attached to my work of commiseration, by reason even of the cares, perhaps the sacrifices, which it would have cost me; your gratitude had rewarded me, and then--but what is the matter? You weep!" "Yes, I weep--weep with joy. You do not know how many new emotions your words cause me. Oh, Clemence, let me weep!" "Never more than at this moment have I comprehended how culpable I have been in chaining you to my sad destiny!" "And never have I felt more decided to forget. These gentle tears that you shed make me acquainted with a happiness of which I was ignorant. Courage, dear, courage; in default of a fortunate and smiling destiny, let us seek our satisfaction in the accomplishment of the serious duties that fate imposes. Let us be indulgent to one another; if we falter, let us regard the cradle of our child, let us concentrate on her all our affections, and we shall yet have some joys, melancholy and holy." "An angel, she is an angel!" cried D'Harville, joining his hands and looking at his wife with affectionate admiration. "Oh! you do not know the pain and pleasure you cause me, Clemence! you do not know that your harshest words formerly, your most severe reproaches, alas! the most merited, have never so much overwhelmed me as this adorable, generous resignation, and yet, in spite of myself, you make hope spring up again. You do not know the future that I dare imagine." "And you can have blind and entire faith in what I tell you, Albert. This resolution is taken firmly; it shall never fail, I swear it to you. Before long I may give you new guarantees of my word." "Guarantees?" cried D'Harville, more and more excited by happiness so unlooked for, "guarantees! have I need of them? Your look, your voice, this beaming expression of goodness which still graces you, the throbbings of my heart, all, all prove to me that what you say is true. But you know, Clemence, man is insatiable in his hopes," added the marquis. "Your noble and touching words give me courage to hope, yes, to hope what yesterday I regarded as an insensate dream." "Albert, I swear to you I shall always be the most devoted of friends, the most tender of sisters; but nothing more. Pardon, pardon, if unknowingly my words have ever given you hopes which can never be realized." "Never?" cried D'Harville, fixing on her a desperate and supplicating look. "Never!" answered Clemence.