Happily for me, my lord, the conversation you overheard between the Countess Sarah and her brother on the subject of M. Charles Robert spares me much of the humiliation I should otherwise have experienced in making this confession. I only venture to hope that, since listening to my relation, you may be induced to consider me as much an object of pity as I admit I am of blame." "I cannot express to you, madame, how deeply your narrative has touched me. What gnawing grief, what hidden sorrows have you not been called upon to endure, from the death of your mother to the birth of your child! Who would ever believe such ills could reach one so envied, so admired, and so calculated to enjoy and impart happiness to others?" "Oh, my lord, there are some sorrows so deep, so unapproachable, that for worlds we would not even have them suspected; and the severest increase of suffering would arise from the very doubt of our being the enviable creatures we are believed to be." "You are right; nothing would be more painful than the question, openly expressed, 'Is she or he as happy as they seem to be?' Still, if there is any happiness in the knowledge, be assured you are not the only one who has to struggle with the fearful contrast between reality and that which the world believes." "How so, my lord?" "Because, in the eyes of all who know you, your husband is esteemed even happier than yourself, since he possesses one so rich in every good gift; and yet is not he also much to be pitied? Can there be a more miserable existence than the one he leads? He has acted unfairly and selfishly towards you, but has he not been bitterly punished? He loves you with a passion, deep and sincere, worthy of you to have inspired, yet he knows that your only feeling towards him is insurmountable aversion and contempt. In his feeble, suffering child he beholds a constant reproach; nor is that all he is called upon to endure; jealousy also assails him with her nameless tortures." "And how can I help that, my lord? By giving him no occasion for jealousy, you reply. And certainly you are right. But, think you, because no other person would possess my love, it would any the more be his? He knows full well it would not. Since the fearful scene I related to you, we have lived entirely apart, while in the eyes of the world I have kept up every necessary appearance of married happiness. With the exception of yourself, my lord, I have never breathed a syllable of this fatal secret to mortal ears: thus, therefore, I venture to ask advice of you I could not solicit from any human being." "And I, madame, can with truth assure you that, if the trifling service I have rendered you be deemed worthy of notice, I hold myself a thousand times overpaid by the confidence you have reposed in me. But, since you deign to ask my advice, and permit me to speak candidly--" "Oh, yes, my lord, I beseech you to use the frankness and sincerity you would show to a sister!"