"Then I saw my aunt and Maurice returning together, and Maurice appeared to be talking in an excited manner, and my aunt looked blacker than any thunder-cloud. Still you did not come, and I went in search of you. Tell me why I find you thus?--you, who have always borne your griefs with such silent fortitude. What _has_ my aunt said or done to you?"
"She has ceased to love me,--she has ceased to esteem me,--she even repents of the benefits she has conferred upon me."
"Oh, I am not mistaken,--my eyes are opened at last. The thin, waxen mask of assumed kindness has melted from her face! I am a burden to her,--an encumbrance,--an offence. She only desires to be rid of me!"
"You,--the fairy of good works in her household? What could she do without you? It is only excitement which makes you imagine this."
"I never guessed, never dreamed it before; but I have wilfully deceived myself. _Now_ all is too clear! A thousand recollections rise up to testify to the truth; a thousand suspicions, which I repulsed as unworthy of me and of her, return to convince me; words and looks, coldness and injustice, slights and reproaches start up with frightful vividness, and throw a hideous light upon conduct I never dared to interpret aright."
"What looks? what words? what actions?" asked Bertha, though her heart told her with what a catalogue she could answer her own question.
"They could not be rehearsed in an hour or in a day. But it is not to my aunt alone that my presence is offensive. Cousin Tristan also chafes at the sight of his dependent relative. I have seen it when I took my seat at table; I have seen it when room was made for me in the carriage; I have seen it on numberless occasions. His glances, his accents, his whole demeanor, have seemed to reproach me for the place I occupied, for the garments I wore, for the very bread I ate,--the bread of bitter, bitter charity! And oh!" she groaned, "_must this be so still?_ _Must_ I still accept these bounties, which are begrudged me? _Must_ I still be bowed to the dust by the weight of these charities? Alas! I _must_, because I have nothing of my own,--because I am nothing of myself!"
Madeleine did not heed her. "Oh, my father! my father! To what torturing humiliations you subjected me in bequeathing me nobility with poverty! Well may you have wished that you had been born a peasant! Had I been a peasant's child, I might have lived by, and rejoiced in, honest labor! Had I been the daughter of a mechanic, I might have gained my bread by some useful trade. Had I even been the child of some poor gentleman, I might have earned a livelihood by giving lessons in music, in drawing, by becoming a governess, or teaching in a school. But, the daughter of the Duke de Gramont, it is one of the curses of my noble birth that I must live upon charity,--charity unwillingly doled out and thrown in my face, even when I am receiving it with meekness!"