"You must know all; if not, I shall appear too contemptible in your eyes. Well, then," she resumed, with desperate resolution, "I was led to my apartment and left there alone; after an hour M. d'Harville joined me there. I was weeping bitterly. My husband came towards me, and was about to take my arm, when he fell at my feet in agony. He could not hear my voice, his countenance was spasmodic with fearful convulsions, his eyes rolled in their orbits with a rapidity that appalled me, his contorted mouth was filled with blood and foam, and his hand grasped me with inconceivable force. I made a desperate effort, and his stiffened fingers at length unclasped from my wrist, and I fainted at the moment when M. d'Harville was struggling in the paroxysm of this horrible attack. This was my wedding night, my lord,--this was the vengeance of Madame Roland!" "Unhappy woman!" said Rodolph, overwhelmed. "I understand,--an epileptic. Ah, 'tis horrible!" "And that is not all," added Clémence, in a voice almost choked by emotion; "my child, my angel girl, she has inherited this frightful malady." "Your daughter! She! What? Her paleness--her weakness--" "Is, I dread to believe, hereditary; and the physicians think, therefore, that it is incurable." Madame d'Harville hid her face in her hands; overcome by this painful disclosure, she had not courage to add another word. Rodolph also remained silent. His mind recoiled affrighted from the terrible mysteries of this night. He pictured to himself the young maiden, already sad, in consequence of her return to the city in which her mother had died, arriving at a strange house, alone with a man for whom she felt an interest and esteem, but not love, nor any of those sentiments which enchant the mind, none of the engrossing feeling which removes the chaste alarms of a woman in the participation of a lawful and reciprocal affection. No, no; on the contrary, Clémence arrived agitated and distressed, with depressed spirits and tearful eyes. She was, however, resolved on resignation and the fulfilment of duty, when, instead of listening to language full of devotion, love, and tenderness, which would compensate for the sorrowful feelings which were uppermost in her mind, she sees convulsed at her feet a stricken man, who twists, and foams, and shrieks, in the hideous convulsions of one of the most fearful infirmities with which a man can be incurably smitten! This is not all: his child, poor little innocent angel! is also withered from her birth. These sad and painful avowals excited bitter reflections in Rodolph's mind. "Such," said he, "is the law of the land. A young, handsome, and pure girl, the confiding and gentle victim of a shameful dissimulation, unites her destiny to that of a man tainted with an incurable malady,--a fatal inheritance which he will assuredly transmit to his children. The unhappy wife discovers this horrid mystery. What can she do? Nothing,--nothing but suffer and weep; nothing but endeavour