He wished to know how she had treated me during the two years we had been in America.  I showed him the few short letters I had received from her.  He was struck by the good sense and perfect integrity which seemed manifested in their lofty tone and manly precision.  In them Edmee had made me no promise, nor had she even encouraged me by holding out any direct hopes; but she had displayed a lively desire for my return, and had spoken of the happiness we should all enjoy when, as we sat around the fire, I should while away the evenings at the chateau with accounts of my wonderful adventures; and she had not hesitated to tell me that, together with her father, I was the one object of her solicitude in life.  Yet, in spite of this never-failing tenderness, a terrible suspicion harassed me.  In these short letters from my cousin, as in those from her father and in the long, florid and affectionate epistles from the Abbe Aubert, they never gave me any news of the events which might be, and ought to be, taking place in the family.  Each spoke of his or her own self and never mentioned the others; or at most they only spoke of the chevalier’s attacks of the gout.  It was as though an agreement had been made between the three that none should talk about the occupations and state of mind of the other two.

“Shed light and ease my mind on this matter if you can,” I said to Arthur.  “There are moments when I fancy that Edmee must be married, and that they have agreed not to inform me until I return, and what is to prevent this, in fact?  Is it probable that she likes me enough to live a life of solitude out of love for me, when this very love, in obedience to the dictation of a cold reason and an austere conscience, can resign itself to seeing my absence indefinitely prolonged with the war?  I have duties to perform here, no doubt; honour demands that I should defend my flag until the day of the triumph or the irreparable defeat of the cause I serve; but I feel that Edmee is dearer to me than these empty honours, and that to see her but one hour sooner I would leave my name to the ridicule or the curses of the world.”

“This last thought,” replied Arthur, with a smile, “is suggested to you by the violence of your passion; but you would not act as you say, even if the opportunity occurred.  When we are grappling with a single one of our faculties we fancy the others annihilated; but let some extraneous shock arouse them, and we realize that our soul draws its life from several sources at the same time.  You are not insensible to fame, Bernard; and if Edmee invited you to abandon it you would perceive that it was dearer to you than you thought.  You have ardent republican convictions, and Edmee herself was the first to inspire you with them.  What, then, would you think of her, and, indeed, what sort of woman would she be, if she said to you to-day, ’There is something more important than the religion I preached to you and the gods I revealed; something more august