out if Madame de Rochefide has returned to Paris. Am I to have a heart
in which to weep and moan? Oh, dearest!--to see one's beliefs, one's
poesy, idol, virtue, happiness, all, all in pieces, withered, lost! No
God in the sky! no love upon earth! no life in my heart! no anything!
I don't know if there's daylight; I doubt the sun. I've such anguish
in my soul I scarcely feel the horrible sufferings in my body.
Happily, the baby is weaned; my milk would have poisoned him."

At that idea the tears began to flow from Sabine's eyes which had
hitherto been dry.

Pretty Madame de Portenduere, holding in her hand the fatal letter,
the perfume of which Sabine again inhaled, was at first stupefied by
this true sorrow, shocked by this agony of love, without as yet
understanding it, in spite of Sabine's incoherent attempts to relate
the facts. Suddenly Ursula was illuminated by one of those ideas which
come to none but sincere friends.

"I must save her!" she thought to herself. "Trust me, Sabine," she
cried. "Wait for my return; I will find out the truth."

"Ah! in my grave I'll love you," exclaimed Sabine.

The viscountess went straight to the Duchesse de Grandlieu, pledged
her to secrecy, and then explained to her fully her daughter's
situation.

"Madame," she said as she ended, "do you not think with me, that in
order to avoid some fatal illness--perhaps, I don't know, even madness
--we had better confide the whole truth to the doctor, and invent some