But even if the baroness complained to her husband of the very great reserve in Helen's manner, and often remarked that her long absence from home seemed, after all, to have alienated her in some degree from her family, the fault lay less with the young lady than with the baroness herself. It had been her own wish to keep Helen so many years from the paternal house; it was she who had explained to her weak husband, when he longed for his dear child, how very advantageous it would be to Helen to be trained early in the strict discipline of a school, and to remain there as long as possible. Long ago, already when the little girl had affectionately leaned against her, she had only replied with a cold air and a few cool French phrases, until the child, growing older, had seen how hopeless the effort was to reach her mother's heart, and abandoned the hope to soften it by her caresses. The poor girl had to pay dear for the misfortune of not being a boy, and of being unable to contribute anything towards securing the entail to the family, and she would probably have been allowed to live a long time yet in exile if her mother had not suddenly conceived the plan of making her, after all, useful for that purpose by marrying her to Felix, the heir-presumptive of the estate. The energetic woman doubted not a moment that she would be able to carry out her project. Felix had not only approved of it highly, but taken already all the steps which the clever baroness had suggested to him as necessary for success. He had thrown up his commission; he had left the city, the theatre of his deeds, and gone to his estates, perhaps in order to look at the place where the beautiful forests once stood which he had mercilessly cut down to pay his most pressing creditors. Baron Felix was in the habit of promising anything and everything to those who lent him money--why should he not promise the baroness to marry her daughter if she engaged to pay his debts and to help him to make his exhausted and ill-managed estates once more productive? On that side, therefore, there were no difficulties to encounter. On Helen's side she expected as little trouble, or rather, up to this time, she had never thought of the possibility of resistance. She had forgotten that she had not seen her daughter for three years; that three years can make great changes, and, among others, can make a proud young lady of seventeen of a timid and submissive child of thirteen. She had forgotten that Helen had learnt not to tremble any more before her mother, and had become far too independent, thanks to her training by a strict but high-toned governess, to submit her will thus _sans façon_ to that of another, whoever he might be.