“Sac-ri-ficing!” cried the count, making each syllable the blow of a sledge-hammer on the heart of his victim.  “What have you sacrificed to your children?  What do you sacrifice to me?  Speak! what means all this?  Answer.  What is going on here?  What did you mean by what you said?”

“Monsieur,” she replied, “would you be satisfied to be loved for love of God, or to know your wife virtuous for virtue’s sake?”

“Madame is right,” I said, interposing in a shaken voice which vibrated in two hearts; “yes, the noblest privilege conferred by reason is to attribute our virtues to the beings whose happiness is our work, and whom we render happy, not from policy, nor from duty, but from an inexhaustible and voluntary affection—­”

A tear shone in Henriette’s eyes.

“And, dear count,” I continued, “if by chance a woman is involuntarily subjected to feelings other than those society imposes on her, you must admit that the more irresistible that feeling is, the more virtuous she is in smothering it, in sacrificing herself to her husband and children.  This theory is not applicable to me who unfortunately show an example to the contrary, nor to you whom it will never concern.”

“You have a noble soul, Felix,” said the count, slipping his arm, not ungracefully, round his wife’s waist and drawing her towards him to say:  “Forgive a poor sick man, dear, who wants to be loved more than he deserves.”

“There are some hearts that are all generosity,” she said, resting her head upon his shoulder.  The scene made her tremble to such a degree that her comb fell, her hair rolled down, and she turned pale.  The count, holding her up, gave a sort of groan as he felt her fainting; he caught her in his arms as he might a child, and carried her to the sofa in the salon, where we all surrounded her.  Henriette held my hand in hers as if to tell me that we two alone knew the secret of that scene, so simple in itself, so heart-rending to her.

“I do wrong,” she said to me in a low voice, when the count left the room to fetch a glass of orange-flower water.  “I have many wrongs to repent of towards you; I wished to fill you with despair when I ought to have received you mercifully.  Dear, you are kindness itself, and I alone can appreciate it.  Yes, I know there is a kindness prompted by passion.  Men have various ways of being kind; some from contempt, others from impulse, from calculation, through indolence of nature; but you, my friend, you have been absolutely kind.”

“If that be so,” I replied, “remember that all that is good or great in me comes through you.  You know well that I am of your making.”

“That word is enough for any woman’s happiness,” she said, as the count re-entered the room.  “I feel better,” she said, rising; “I want air.”

We went down to the terrace, fragrant with the acacias which were still in bloom.  She had taken my right arm, and pressed it against her heart, thus expressing her sad thoughts; but they were, she said, of a sadness dear to her.  No doubt she would gladly have been alone with me; but her imagination, inexpert in women’s wiles, did not suggest to her any way of sending her children and the count back to the house.  We therefore talked on indifferent subjects, while she pondered a means of pouring a few last thoughts from her heart to mine.