The young baroness bore her trial very differently. She gave way to a
passionate outburst of grief on learning that her baby was drowned--a
grief in which the baron shared, and was, indeed, in more need of
consolation than his wife, for to his sorrow was added remorse and
bitterest stings of conscience for having brought such sorrow to his
wife, about whom he was very anxious, until the doctor assured him the
sad certainty was even better for her than the terrible suspense she had
been enduring for the last week. To a young, passionate nature hitherto
undisciplined by the sorrows of life, like the young baroness's,
anything was easier to bear than suspense, and the doctor assured Arnaud
that the passionate grief in which his wife indulged would do her no
harm--on the contrary, she was more likely to get over it quickly.
Violent grief is rarely lasting; there invariably follows a reaction.
A few days later the baron received another telegram from the Havre
agents, telling him they had found out that the Hirondelle had left
Yarmouth, on the Norfolk coast, where she had been lying for two or
three days, the day before she was lost, and was then intending to
cruise round the coast of Great Britain.
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