"Nay, do not call me lady," answered Mademoiselle d'Albret; "you used to call me Rose, Helen, and you must do so still. But indeed, dear Helen," she continued, willing to pass away heavy time, with any other thoughts but those of what was taking place so near her, "but indeed, I will trust you may still be happy; and one thing you must do for my sake, you must tell your uncle all. He will give you absolution for the past, and direction for the future." "Ere this, he has been told," answered Helen, "told by that harsh and cruel woman. She would never spare me that." "Ay, but you know not how she may have told it," answered Rose d'Albret. "Oh, she is false and deceitful, Helen, and may have cast the whole blame and shame on you, when in truth, yours is but the lighter share. See him, dear Helen, see him, and let him know the whole. Shrink not from his reproaches; hear them with patience and humility; but let him know the plain truth, just as you have told it me; and he will forgive you, I am sure. Hark! there are the cannon again. Oh Good, protect him!--Helen, I will go and pray." "May I pray with you?" asked Helen de la Tremblade timidly. "Come," said Rose taking her by the hand, "come let us raise our voice to Him from whom all need, and all are sure to receive, forgiveness and mercy if they seek it." An hour passed by in anxious expectation. Oh, how long an hour may be to those who watch, to those who with the faint sickening of the heart, know that upon its events may hang the long misery of a hopeless, cheerless, loveless life! It seemed as if it would never go; and every device they used to make it speed the faster, seemed like the ticking of a clock, marking the slowness of time's progress, not accelerating its flight. Now they spoke of things past, hoping to lose in retrospection, the sense of things present; now they talked of the future, the wide indefinite blank, which to all men is a chasm that the eye searches in vain. But still to the present, the overburdened present, their minds and their words returned whether they would or not. To the quick imagination of Rose d'Albret, all the horrors of the battle-field presented themselves in more than even their real terrors. She pictured the dead, the dying, and the wounded; the fierce contention, the sanguinary triumph, the unsparing cruelty, loss, flight, defeat; and though she laboured zealously with her own mind to lead it to other themes, yet it was all in vain. She might speak of anything, of everything but the battle, yet still her thoughts wandered back to that overwhelming image, which, like some vaster mountain in a hilly country, was ever seen towering over all the rest, and presenting itself to contemplation, whenever the eyes were turned from other objects.