"Ah," replied Rodolph, sadly, "I understand! Come, courage! you were saying that you required an aim, a motive, a means of directing your thoughts. Permit me to hope that all this will be accomplished by following out the plan I have proposed. Your heart will be then so filled with the delightful recollection of all the happiness you have caused, and all the good you have effected, that, in all probability, you will find no room for resentment against your husband. In place of angry feelings, you will regard him with the same sorrowing pity you look on your dear child. And as for the interesting little creature herself, now you have confided to me the cause of her delicate health, I almost think myself warranted in bidding you yet to entertain hopes of overcoming the fearful complaint which has hitherto affected her tender frame." "Oh, my lord!" exclaimed Clémence, clasping her hands with eagerness, "can it be possible? How? In what manner can my child be saved?" "I have, as physician to myself and household, a man almost unknown, though possessed of a first-rate science. Great part of his life was passed in America; and I remember his speaking to me of some marvellous cures performed by him on slaves attacked by this distressing complaint." "And do you really think, my lord--" "Nay, you must not allow yourself to dwell too confidently upon success; the disappointment would be so very severe. Only, do not let us wholly despair." Clémence d'Harville cast a hasty glance of unutterable gratitude over the noble features of Rodolph, the firm, unflinching friend, who reconciled her to herself with so much good sense, intelligence, and delicacy of feeling. Then she asked herself how, for one instant, she could ever have been interested in the fate of such a being as M. Charles Robert,--the very idea was hateful to her. "What do I not owe you, my lord?" cried she, in a voice of thrilling emotion; "you console me for the past; you open to me a glimpse of hope for my child; and you place before me a plan of future occupation which shall afford me both consolation and the delight of doing my duty. Ah, was I not right when I said that, if you would come here to-night, you would finish the day as you had begun it,--by performing a good action?" "And pray, madame, do not omit to add,--an action after my own heart, where all is pleasure and unmixed enjoyment in its performance. And now, adieu!" said Rodolph, rising as the clock struck half-past eleven. "Adieu, my lord, and pray do not forget to send me news ere long of those poor people in the Rue du Temple."