Violently agitated, distracted by a thousand conflicting emotions, daring neither to refuse nor to promise, fearing the consequences of a decision thus forced from her, the unhappy girl begged her mother for a few hours to reflect.

Mme. de la Verberie dared not refuse this request, and acquiesced.

“I will leave you, my daughter,” she said, “and I trust your own heart will tell you how to decide between a useless confession and your mother’s salvation.”

With these words she left the room indignant but hopeful.

And she had grounds for hope.  Placed between two obligations equally sacred, equally binding, but diametrically opposite, Valentine’s troubled mind could no longer clearly discern the path of duty.  Could she reduce her mother to want and misery?  Could she basely deceive the confidence and love of an honorable man?  However she decided, her future life would be one of suffering and remorse.

Alas! why had she not a wise and kind adviser to point out the right course to pursue, and assist her in struggling against evil influences?  Why had she not that gentle, discreet friend who had inspired her with hope and courage in her first dark sorrow—­Dr. Raget?

Formerly the memory of Gaston had been her guiding star:  now this far-off memory was nothing but a faint mist—­a sort of vanishing dream.

In romance we meet with heroines of lifelong constancy:  real life produces no such miracles.

For a long time Valentine’s mind had been filled with the image of Gaston.  As the hero of her dreams she dwelt fondly on his memory; but the shadows of time had gradually dimmed the brilliancy of her idol, and now only preserved a cold relic, over which she sometimes wept.

When she arose the next morning, pale and weak from a sleepless, tearful night, she had almost resolved to confess everything to her suitor.

But when evening came, and she went down to see Andre Fauvel, the presence of her mother’s threatening, supplicating eye destroyed her courage.

She said to herself, “I will tell him to-morrow.”  Then she said, “I will wait another day; one more day can make no difference.”

The countess saw all these struggles, but was not made uneasy by them.

She knew by experience that, when a painful duty is put off, it is never performed.

There was some excuse for Valentine in the horror of her situation.  Perhaps, unknown to herself, she felt a faint hope arise within her.  Any marriage, even an unhappy one, offered the prospect of a change, of a new life, a relief from the insupportable suffering she was now enduring.

Sometimes, in her ignorance of human life, she imagined that time and close intimacy would take it easier for her to confess her terrible fault; that it would be the most natural thing in the world for Andre to pardon her, and insist upon marrying her, since he loved her so deeply.