of being his wife. He hesitated long. In fact, my request gave
rise to a little argument between us, which lasted through three
relays,--I endeavoring to maintain the part of an obstinate girl,
and trying to sulk; he debating within himself the question which
the newspapers used to put to Charles X.: "Must the king yield or
not?" At last, after passing Verneuil, and exchanging oaths enough
to satisfy three dynasties never to reproach him for his folly,
and never to treat him coldly, etc., etc., he related to me his
love for Madame de Rochefide.

"I do not wish," he said, in conclusion, "to have any secrets
between us."

Poor, dear Calyste, it seems, was ignorant that his friend,
Mademoiselle des Touches, and you had thought it right to tell me
the truth. Well, mother,--for I can tell all to a mother as tender
as you,--I was deeply hurt by perceiving that he had yielded less
to my request than to his own desire to talk of that strange
passion. Do you blame me, darling mother, for having wished to
reconnoitre the extent of the grief, the open wound of the heart
of which you warned me?

So, eight hours after receiving the rector's blessing at
Saint-Thomas d'Aquin, your Sabine was in the rather false position of
a young wife listening to a confidence, from the very lips of her
husband, of his misplaced love for an unworthy rival. Yes, there I
was, in the drama of a young woman learning, officially, as it
were, that she owed her marriage to the disdainful rejection of an
old and faded beauty!