"But she will still retain the best and tenderest of fathers. By your marriage with the Countess Sarah she will be the legitimate daughter of one of Europe's sovereign princes, and, as you but just now observed, my lord, her position will be as great and splendid as it has been miserable and obscure." "You are then pitilessly determined to shut out all hope from me? Unhappy being that I am!" "Dare you style yourself unhappy,--you so good, so just, so elevated in rank, as well as in mind and feeling? Who so well and nobly understand the duty of self-denial and self-sacrifice? When but a short time since you bewailed your child's death with such heartfelt agony, had any one said to you, 'Utter the dearest wish of your soul and it shall be accomplished,' you would have cried, 'My child--my daughter! Restore her to me in life and health!' This unexpected blessing is granted you, your daughter is given to your longing arms, and yet you style yourself miserable! Ah, my lord, let not Fleur-de-Marie hear you, I beseech you!" "You are right," said Rodolph, after a long silence, "such happiness as I aspired to would have been too much for this world, and far beyond my right even to dream of. Be satisfied your words have prevailed,--I will act according to my duty to my daughter, and forget the bleeding wound it inflicts on my own heart. But I am not sorry I hesitated in my resolution, since I owe to it a fresh proof of the perfection of your character." "And is it not to you I owe the power of struggling with personal feelings and devoting myself to the good of others? Was it not you who raised and comforted my poor depressed mind, and encouraged me to look for comfort where only it could be found? To you, then, be all the merit of the little virtue I may now be practising, as well as all the good I may hereafter achieve. But take courage, my lord, bear up, as becomes one of your firm, right-minded nature. Directly Fleur-de-Marie is equal to the journey, remove her to Germany; once there, she will benefit so greatly by the grave tranquillity of the country that her mind and feelings will be soothed and calmed down to a placidity and gentle enjoyment of the present, while the past will seem but as a troubled dream." "But you--you?"