At these words, the other half raised herself on the mattress, and looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville in amazement. She could scarcely believe what she heard; far from designing to intrude upon her confidence, it was her protectress who was to make the painful confession, and who came to implore pity and consolation from her! "What!" stammered she; "you, lady!" "I come to tell you that I suffer, and am ashamed of my sufferings. Yes," added the young lady, with a touching expression, "yes--of all confessions, I am about to make the most painful--I love--and I blush for my love." "Like myself!" cried Mother Bunch, involuntarily, clasping her hands together. "I love," resumed Adrienne, with a long-pent-up grief; "I love, and am not beloved--and my love is miserable, is impossible--it consumes me--it kills me--and I dare not confide to any one the fatal secret!" "Like me," repeated the other, with a fixed look. "She--a queen in beauty, rank, wealth, intelligence--suffers like me. Like me, poor unfortunate creature! she loves, and is not loved again." "Well, yes! like you, I love and am not loved again," cried Mdlle. de Cardoville; "was I wrong in saying, that to you alone I could confide my secret--because, having suffered the same pangs, you alone can pity them?" "Then, lady," said Mother Bunch, casting down her eyes, and recovering from her first amazement, "you knew--" "I knew all, my poor child--but never should I have mentioned your secret, had I not had one to entrust you with, of a still more painful nature. Yours is cruel, but mine is humiliating. Oh, my sister!" added Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a tone impossible to describe, "misfortune, you, see, blends and confounds together what are called distinctions of rank and fortune--and often those whom the world envies are reduced by suffering far below the poorest and most humble, and have to seek from the latter pity and consolation." Then, drying her tears, which nosy flowed abundantly, Mdlle. de Cardoville resumed, in a voice of emotion: "Come, sister! courage, courage! let us love and sustain each other. Let this sad and mysterious bond unite us forever." "Oh, lady! forgive me. But now that you know the secret of my life," said the workgirl, casting down her eyes, and unable to vanquish her confusion, "it seems to me, that I can never look at you without blushing." "And why? because you love Agricola?" said Adrienne. "Then I must die of shame before you, since, less courageous than you, I had not the strength to suffer and be resigned, and so conceal my love in the depths of my heart. He that I love, with a love henceforth deprived of hope, knew of that love and despised it--preferring to me a woman, the very choice of whom was a new and grievous insult, if I am not much deceived by appearances. I sometimes hope that I am deceived on this point. Now tell me--is it for you to blush?" "Alas, lady! who could tell you all this?"