“No! I don’t care about that! Remembering I cannot forget.” “My poor child! would to God I could help you! I would suffer willingly in your place!” The words came like a gush from his inmost heart. They broke down the sufferer’s proud resistance and let the tears have vent. He turned to walk back with her. For some time neither spoke; only the soft sobs that came unchecked from Franceline broke the temple-like stillness of the wood. Suddenly she cried out in a tone of passionate desperation: “O father! it is dreadful. It will kill me if it lasts much longer! The humiliation is more than I can bear! To feel that I am harboring a feeling that my whole soul rebels against, that is revolting in the eyes of God and of my conscience! And I cannot master it!” “You will never master it by pride, Franceline; that very pride is your greatest hindrance in setting your heart free. Try and think more of God and less of yourself. There is no sin, as you say, in the suffering, any more than, if you strayed to the edge of a precipice in the dark, and fell over and were killed, you would be guilty of suicide. The sinfulness now is in your rebellion against the suffering simply because it wounds your pride.” “It is not all pride, father,” she said meekly. Presently she turned and looked up at him through wet lashes. “Father, I must tell you something,” she said, speaking with a sort of timidity that was unusual with her towards him--“a thought that came to me this morning that never came to me before.…” “What was it?” “If his wife should die … he would be free?” A dark shadow fell now on Father Henwick’s large, smooth brow. Franceline read his answer in the frown and the averted gaze; but he spoke soon, though he did not look at her. “That was a sinful thought! You should have cast it behind you with contempt. Has it come to that with you, that you could look forward to the death of any one as a thing to be longed for?” “I did not long for it. The thought came to me.” “You should have hunted it out of your mind like an evil spirit, as it was. You must never let it near you again. _He_ should be to you as if he were already dead. Whether his wife dies or not should not, and does not, concern you. Besides, how do you know whether she is not as young as yourself, and stronger? My child, such a thought as that would lead you to the brink of an abyss, if you listened to it.” “I never will again, father,” she answered promptly. “I hardly know now whether I listened to it or not; only I could not help telling you.” “You were right to tell me; and now banish it, and never let it approach you again.” After a pause he resumed: “You are sure that silence is best with M. de la Bourbonais?” “Oh! yes. How can you ask me, father?” And Franceline looked up in surprise.