CHAPTER XX
The two young ladies were sitting in Lula's chamber. That was a painful silence. If there are grievous moments in life, they had thrown their weight on the present fate of Lula. Everything which she held sacred in her breast had been trampled. She had put into that love the best parts of her moral existence, the victory to her had been like a wedding solemnity; by the power of this feeling she had risen from a momentary fall, she had conquered family prejudice, rejected the hand of a man who loved her, and with it a calm future, life in plenty, her own independence, and the pay for all this was information that he whom she loved was to marry another.
Ei! she lost still more. All the angelic qualities which preceding days had given her were crushed now into ruins of despair. Her soul might wither to its foundation! Had she not lost with love also faith and hope, not in their theological sense, but in all their vital value
