God alone, as you have often
told me, should be the end and object of all our actions."
The abbe was deeply touched as he watched the tears roll down her
pallid face. The higher her sense of security had been, the lower she
was now to fall.
"But," she said, continuing, "if I return to my orphaned condition, I
shall know how to take up its feelings. After all, could I have tied a
mill-stone round the neck of him I love? What can he do here? Who am I
to bind him to me? Besides, do I not love him with a friendship so
divine that I can bear the loss of my own happiness and my hopes? You
know I have often blamed myself for letting my hopes rest upon a
grave, and for knowing they were waiting on that poor old lady's
death. If Savinien is rich and happy with another I have enough to pay
for my entrance to a convent, where I shall go at once. There can no
more be two loves in a woman's heart than there can be two masters in
heaven, and the life of a religious is attractive to me."
"He could not let his mother go alone to Rouvre," said the abbe,
gently.
"Do not let us talk of that, my dear good friend," she answered.
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