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 though they both conversed, conversation in both appeared but as the faint effort of feeling to try and beguile the sadness of each other.

The efforts she made to converse during the day were painful in the extreme; and when the Countess retired in the evening, as was her usual custom, to the ruined monastery in the valley, for the purpose of prayer and meditation, Madeline hastily threw a scarf around her, and went out upon the lawn, as if she had feared a longer continuance in the house would subject her to society, which, in the present agitated state of her mind was irksome to her.