"Clemence, do you hear?" cried Rodolph, in extreme distress. "Oh, fatality--fatality! Now I curse my fears, my silence. This sad idea, so long and deeply rooted in her mind, has, unknown to us, made fearful ravages; and it is too late to contend against this sad error. Oh, I am indeed wretched!" "Courage, my dearest!" said Clemence to Rodolph. "You said but now that it is best to know the enemy that threatens us. We know now the cause of our child's sorrow, and will triumph over it, because we shall have with us reason, justice, and our excessive love for her." "And then she will see, too, that her affliction, if it be, indeed, incurable, will render ours incurable," said Rodolph. After a protracted silence, during which Fleur-de-Marie appeared to recover herself, she took Rodolph's and Clemence's hands in her own, and said in a voice deeply affected, "Hear me, beloved father, and you my best of mothers. God has willed it, and I thank him for it, that I should no longer conceal from you all that I feel. I must have done so shortly, and told you what I will now avow, for I could not longer have kept it concealed." "Ah, now I comprehend!" ejaculated Rodolph, "and there is no longer any hope for her." "I hope in the future, my dear father, and this hope gives me strength to speak thus to you." "And what can you hope for the future, poor child, since your present fate only causes you grief and torment?" "I will tell you; but before I do so let me recall to you the past, and confess before God, who hears me, what I have felt to this time." "Speak--speak--we listen!" was Rodolph's reply. "As long as I was in Paris with you, my dearest father, I was so happy that such days of bliss cannot be paid for too dearly by years of suffering. You see I have at least known happiness." "For some days, perhaps." "Yes, but what pure and unmingled happiness! The future dazzled me,--a father to adore, a second mother to cherish doubly, for she replaced mine, whom I never knew. Then--for I will confess all--my pride was roused in spite of myself. So greatly did I rejoice in belonging to you. If then I sometimes thought vaguely of the past, it was to say to myself, 'I, formerly so debased, am the beloved daughter of a sovereign prince, whom everybody blesses and reveres; I, formerly so wretched, now enjoy all the splendours of luxury, and an existence almost royal.' Alas! my father, my good fortune was so unlooked for, your power surrounded me with so much brilliancy, that I was, perhaps, excusable in allowing myself to be thus blinded."