"
"Why do wrong when you know it to be wrong?"
"How can I help it? I catch myself thinking as if I were fifty, and
acting as if I were still fifteen. You have always been my better
self, my poor Francine, but in this affair I must stifle conscience.
And," she added after a pause, "I cannot. Therefore, how can you
expect me to take a confessor as stern as you?" and she patted the
girl's hand.
"When did I ever blame your actions?" cried Francine. "Evil is so
mixed with good in your nature. Yes, Saint Anne of Auray, to whom I
pray to save you, will absolve you for all you do. And, Marie, am I
not here beside you, without so much as knowing where you go?" and she
kissed her hands with effusion.
"But," replied Marie, "you may yet desert me, if your conscience--"
"Hush, hush, mademoiselle," cried Francine, with a hurt expression.
"But surely you will tell me--"
"Nothing!" said the young lady, in a resolute voice. "Only--and I wish
you to know it--I hate this enterprise even more than I hate him whose
gilded tongue induced me to undertake it. I will be rank and own to
you that I would never have yielded to their wishes if I had not
foreseen, in this ignoble farce, a mingling of love and danger which
tempted me. I cannot bear to leave this empty world without at least
attempting to gather the flowers that it owes me,--whether I perish in
the attempt or not.
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