“I think, sir, that, considering I am mad, you speak to me very reasonably.”

“Mad! no, thank heaven, my poor child, you are not mad yet—­and I hope that, by my care, you will never be so.  It is to prevent your becoming mad, that one must take it in time; and believe me, it is full time.  You look at me with such an air of surprise—­now tell me, what interest can I have in talking to you thus?  Is it the hatred of your aunt that I wish to favor?  To what end, I would ask?  What can she do for me or against me?  I think of her at this moment neither more nor less than I thought yesterday.  Is it a new language that I hold to yourself?  Did I not speak to you yesterday many times, of the dangerous excitement of mind in which you were, and of your singular whims and fancies?  It is true, I made use of stratagem to bring you hither.  No doubt, I did so.  I hastened to avail myself of the opportunity, which you yourself offered, my poor, dear child; for you would never have come hither with your own good will.  One day or the other, we must have found some pretext to get you here:  and I said to myself; ’Her interest before all!  Do your duty, let whatever will betide!’—­”

Whilst M. Baleinier was speaking, Adrienne’s countenance, which had hitherto expressed alternately indignation and disdain, assumed an indefinable look of anguish and horror.  On hearing this man talk in such a natural manner, and with such an appearance of sincerity, justice and reason, she felt herself more alarmed than ever.  An atrocious deception, clothed in such forms, frightened her a hundred times more than the avowed hatred of Madame de Saint-Dizier.  This audacious hypocrisy seemed to her so monstrous, that she believed it almost impossible.

Adrienne had so little the art of hiding her emotions, that the doctor, a skillful and profound physiognomist, instantly perceived the impression he had produced.  “Come,” said he to himself, “that is a great step.  Fright has succeeded to disdain and anger.  Doubt will come next.  I shall not leave this place, till she has said to me:  ’Return soon, my good M. Baleinier!’” With a voice of sorrowful emotion, which seemed to come from the very depths of his heart, the doctor thus continued:  “I see, you are still suspicious of me.  All I can say to you is falsehood, fraud, hypocrisy, hate—­is it not so?—­Hate you? why, in heaven’s name, should I hate you?  What have you done to me? or rather—­you will perhaps attach more value to this reason from a man of my sort,” added M. Baleinier, bitterly, “or rather, what interest have I to hate you?—­You, that have only been reduced to the state in which you are by an over abundance of the most generous instincts—­you, that are suffering, as it were, from an excess of good qualities—­you can bring yourself coolly and deliberately to accuse an honest man, who has never given you any but marks of affection, of the basest, the blackest, the most abominable crime, of which a human being could be