“The duties of a wife and mother are closely blended,” she returned; “and I trust I have not been deficient in the performance of either.”

“You well know,” he said, peevishly, “that I have no fancy for the nursery, with its appendages of children and nurses; and yet, for three days, you have scarcely condescended to quit it for an instant.  Yes, for three days,” he repeated, again stopping and looking earnestly at her, “you have secluded yourself from me, and your cheek has grown pale, as if some cherished care, or deep anxiety, had preyed upon your thoughts!”

“And what anxiety can exceed a mother’s?” she asked, the tears springing to her eyes; “what care so ceaseless and unwearied, as her’s, who watches over the helpless being to whom she has given existence; whose sufferings no other eye can comprehend; whose infant wants demand the constant soothings of her enduring tenderness, and exhaustless love!  And has this excited your displeasure?”

“My own affairs have chafed me, Adele,” he said, more gently; “a favorite project has miscarried, and the vengeance I have so long desired is foiled, in the very moment when I believed success undoubted; all this, too, through my own easy credulity, and a lenity, which its object ill deserved from me!”

“You have erred on the safer side,” said Madame d’Aulney, timidly; “and your own heart, I doubt not, will acknowledge, in some cooler moment, that it is far better to forego the momentary pleasure of revenge, than to commit one deed which could stain your name with the guilt of tyranny and oppression.”

“You know little of the wrongs,” he answered, sternly, “which for years have goaded me; and which, if unrevenged, would brand me with worse than a coward’s infamy.  The artifice, which has so often baffled my plans; the arrogance, which has usurped my claims; even you, gentle as you are, would scorn me, if I could forgive them!”

“Mutual injuries require mutual forgiveness,” she replied; “and, in the strife of angry passions, it is not easy to discriminate the criminal from the accuser.  But,” she added, seeing his brow darken, “you have led me into a subject which can only betray my ignorance; you well know that I am wholly incompetent to judge of your public affairs; and I have never ventured to obtrude upon your private views, or personal feelings.”

“You have too much of a woman’s heart, Adele,” he said, “to become the sharer of important councils; a freak of fancy, or a kindly feeling, might betray or destroy the wisest plan that could be formed.”

“Nay,” she answered, smiling, “I have no wish to play the counsellor; and it is well, if my husband can be satisfied with the humble duties which it is my sole ambition to fulfil.”