To love merely is not enough.

That love must be crowned and blest." He had fallen into a chair, faint and overcome, as tears came to his eyes.

Never before had she reproached him for the ever-open wound which marred their lives, and she who always after having grieved him by an involuntary allusion to the past had quickly recovered herself and consoled him, this time let him suffer, looking at him as she stood near, but making no sign, taking no step towards him.

He wept bitterly, exclaiming in the midst of his tears: "Ah! the dear child upstairs--it is she you condemn.

You are not willing that Felicien should marry her, as I married you, and that she should suffer as you have done." She answered simply by a look: a clear, affectionate glance, in which he read the strength and simplicity of her heart.
"But you said yourself, my dear, that our sweet daughter would die of grief if matters were not changed.