First Part Chapter 28

Now I know what I have lived for! Thus the
first certainty of bearing within me another life brought healing to
my wounds. A joy that beggars description has crowned for me those
long days of sacrifice, in which Louis had already found his.

Sacrifice! I said to myself, how far does it excel passion! What
pleasure has roots so deep as one which is not personal but creative?
Is not the spirit of Sacrifice a power mightier than any of its
results? Is it not that mysterious, tireless divinity, who hides
beneath innumerable spheres in an unexplored centre, through which all
worlds in turn must pass? Sacrifice, solitary and secret, rich in
pleasures only tasted in silence, which none can guess at, and no
profane eye has ever seen; Sacrifice, jealous God and tyrant, God of
strength and victory, exhaustless spring which, partaking of the very
essence of all that exists, can by no expenditure be drained below its
own level;--Sacrifice, there is the keynote of my life.

For you, Louise, love is but the reflex of Felipe's passion; the life
which I shed upon my little ones will come back to me in ever-growing
fulness. The plenty of your golden harvest will pass; mine, though
late, will be but the more enduring, for each hour will see it
renewed. Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from
Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood?
A smile has dried my tears. Love makes my Louis happy, but marriage
has made me a mother, and who shall say I am not happy also?