Nothing seemed wanting now to prevent this pleasant scheme from being carried out. Yet something had happened during this last visit of Bancal to the Clos which had entirely altered the aspect of things. It seems pretty clear that the latter—judging from hints and allusions in their correspondence—had conceived too warm an admiration for Roland's wife, and, seeing the disparity of age between her and her husband, had—with the bias natural to a Frenchman—indulged in the hope of finding his attachment reciprocated. It seems equally clear that Madame Roland, although shocked at the discovery, could not help feeling flattered, nor avoid a certain compassionate tenderness for the man she was now forced to bid renounce all idea of fixing himself in her neighbourhood. This, at least, seems to be the key to the letter she now addressed to Bancal after her husband's invitation.
"It would make the charm of our lives (this association), and we should not be useless to our fellow men. Yet this comfortable text has not put me at my ease! . . . I am not convinced it would be for your happiness, and I should never forgive myself for having troubled it. For it has seemed to me that you were inclined, to some extent, to make it depend on things which seem wrong to me, and to nurse hopes which I must forbid. No doubt the affection which unites sincere and sensitive natures, who share a common enthusiasm for what is right, must give a new value to existence; no doubt the virtues which such an affection may help to develop might turn to the profit of society . . . But who can foresee the effect of violent agitations too frequently renewed? . . . I mistake; you might sometimes be saddened, but you could
