When Sabine de Mussidan told her lover that she would appeal to the generosity
of M. de Breulh-Faverlay, she had not calculated on the necessity she would
have for endurance, but had rather listened to the dictates of her heart; and this
fact came the more strongly before her, when in the solitude of her own chamber,
she inquired of herself how she was to carry out her promise. It seemed to her
very terrible to have to lay bare the secrets of her soul to any one, but the more
so to M. de Breulh-Faverlay, who had asked for her hand in marriage. She
uttered no word on her way home, where she arrived just in time to take her
place at the dinner table, and never was a more dismal company assembled for
the evening meal. Her own miseries occupied Sabine, and her father and mother
were suffering from their interviews with Mascarin and Dr. Hortebise. What did
the liveried servants, who waited at table with such an affectation of interest, care
for the sorrows of their master or mistress? They were well lodged and well fed,
and nothing save their wages did they care for. By nine o'clock Sabine was in her
own room trying to grow accustomed to the thoughts of an interview with M. de
Breulh-Faverlay. She hardly closed her eyes all night, and felt worn out and
dispirited by musing; but she never thought of evading the promise she had
made to Andre, or of putting it off for a time. She had vowed to lose no time, and
her lover was eagerly awaiting a letter from her, telling him of the result. In the
perplexity in which she found herself, she could not confide in either father or
mother, for she felt that a cloud hung over both their lives, though she knew not
what it was. When she left the convent where she had been educated, and
returned home, she felt that she was in the way, and that the day of her marriage
would be one of liberation to her parents from their cares and responsibilities. All
this prayed terribly upon her mind, and might have driven a less pure- minded girl
to desperate measures. It seemed to her that it would be less painful to fly from
her father's house than to have this interview with M. de Breulh-Faverlay. Luckily
for her, frail as she looked, she possessed an indomitable will, and this carried
her through most of her difficulties.
For Andre's sake, as well as her own, she did not wish to violate any of the
unwritten canons of society, but she longed for the hour to come when she could
acknowledge her love openly to the world. At one moment she thought of writing
a letter, but dismissed the thought as the height of folly. As the time passed
Sabine began to reproach herself for her cowardice. All at once she heard the
clang of the opening of the main gates. Peeping from her window, she saw a
carriage drive up, and, to her inexpressible delight, M. de Breulh-Faverlay
alighted from it.
"Heaven has head my prayer, and sent him to me," murmured she.
"What do you intend to do, Mademoiselle?" asked the devoted Modeste; "will you
speak to him now?"
"Yes, I will. My mother is still in her dressing-room, and no one will venture to
disturb my father in the library. If I meet M. de Breulh- Faverlay in the hall and
