act I turned towards her. I saw her transfigured. The mobility of

expression, the fire of her eyes revealed her deep emotion. She enjoyed the present moment with all her tense body and high-strung spirit. How pleasure can change a face, and how its quality reveals itself! I pointed her out to Elizabeth:

"'What do you think of her?'

"'Old and insignificant.'"

"December: To get out of one's life everything that can be derived from a maximum of effort constitutes a sort of happiness, the only sort which depends entirely on ourselves."

"February, 1904: The first volume of 'The History of a Peasant' and the 'Life of Pascal' have been brought out by my two publishers at short intervals. They are severe and passionate books, not pleasing to women. So I do not understand why I receive so many letters concerning them. The majority take no interest in them. Some few show a taste for deep reading. In the tumult of Paris, it is praiseworthy.

"I do not think that Elizabeth has yet cut her copies. As I have read to her in the evenings at Saint Martin some of the chapters with which I was particularly pleased, and as she saw the proofs, she has every reason in the world to avoid this burden. At heart, she does not like the life that chance, not her desire, has fashioned for her. At Grenoble in a drab, dull sphere, she would have been happier. Life here is beyond her. Paris calls for continued effort, and the Parisians are forceful because of the keen competition which works to the disadvantage of the weak, who are soon discarded or crushed.

"The books which I suggest that she read, she either rushes through or does not finish. I saw her stop once at the last page but one, of an Italian novel which I had devoured passionately. She was not eager to know the conclusion. On the other hand, she adores the theater, for which I care so little; there, seated in an armchair, you have your own emotions served to you."

"February: Party at Mme. de B----. Why do they pursue me? Is it because I make no advances to them? My fame attracts them. A very naïve curiosity; as if the best of a writer is not to be found in his works! They suspect my moral loneliness. One of them said to me: 'In Pascal there is commendation of solitude. One might say that you know the rapture of it and that you despise women.' Desire clothes the expression of disdain."

"March: A slight intrigue with Mme. R----. I like the contrast of her black hair and her glistening neck and all the vital power which emanates from her. But she is rather vulgar, as often happens in the case of these beauteous beings of joy.

"I have tried in vain to make Elizabeth jealous. In her opinion the world is divided into two categories--good people and the others--and we belong to the first, which is very restful. She recognizes no compromise, no distinction, no desire, no passion. But my thoughts are free."

"March 30th: Spring has come on its own day this year, a rare thing. In the streets and over the squares floats a delicate light, a slight fog. The trees are beginning to show their buds and tiny leaves. As one walks, somewhat out of practice since the winter, one feels a pleasant lassitude, as if carrying a burden of gladness.

"I look at the women as they pass, more graceful in their lighter suits. One of them, it is inevitable, is coming into my life as into an open garden. I am watching for her without settling my choice on anyone. A harmless dream which amuses me."

"April: Which? I am at times like a huntsman on the alert. And then I give up so futile a pursuit.

"My first love is the symbol of my sentimental life. I was fifteen and the young girl whom I loved was seventeen or eighteen. I looked at her from afar, yet I dared not speak to her. To see her gave me happiness that was almost too much to bear. What more could I desire? She guessed my secret, and it was she who offered her heart to me. But I refused her, assuring her that she was wrong in believing she loved me. I could not admit that my love ceased to be a painful exaltation.

"When Elizabeth passed through the streets of Grenoble, I stopped, not to gaze upon her longer, but because I could not make advances.

"I find myself again in that state of languor and expectation, but without cause. My thoughts are quite fixed upon the future. Elizabeth, Elizabeth, when you came into my life, I believed the sun rose in you. Why have you allowed the darkness to fall? Our hearth exhales death and night. I can no longer bear that state of apathy which is neither sorrow nor joy, that listlessness into which I am sinking. Do you not see the danger? And if the well-spring of my mental activity, thus parched, were to dry up! A man's brain is a delicate mechanism. An awkward hand is sufficient to warp it. And it is because I am tired that I am returning to lectures, articles, essays, to all those rapid works which mislead us about our power of production. But you were not capable of giving me a different love, not to me, nor to anyone else...."

"April 25th: Next week a history congress in London. They have asked me for a lecture on the condition of the peasant in France before the Revolution."

The second of Albert Derize's note-books concluded with this information.

IV

ANNE DE SÉZERY

There was only one more book. On the first blank page appeared this notice in pencil: "To be destroyed without reading," as a precaution taken in case of accident.

Elizabeth conscientiously hesitated to turn the page. Had she the right to go on? But Philippe Lagier, who was Albert's representative, had made no reservation in giving her the package. It was then expected that she should gain complete information without restriction. Her scruples, it is true, were in accord with an instinctive fear. She surmised that there would be less mention of her and more of another, and she regretted in advance the accusations which she had found, and to which perhaps there would be no further allusion. Finally she experienced an absolute reluctance to hear anything about this woman who was about to appear on the scene, and whom she utterly despised and wished to forget.

After trying unsuccessfully to conquer the obsession of her awakened curiosity, of her anxiety, she lost her self-control and inner peace, and applied herself distractedly to the reading.

There were no more crosses. The unfinished book was wholly consecrated to the intimate life, the new life of Albert Derize.

"London, May 3, 1904. The hall of the Imperial Institute at Kensington, where I gave my lecture on the condition of the peasant before the Revolution, holds a thousand persons. The government was well represented. The Lord Mayor, the Sheriff of the City, the Ambassador of France, the Consul General, a delegation from the Royal Academy were present. Poor little French peasant whom I lead through the capitals, how I sometimes envy your work in the open air and the fruitful sweat of your brow! The lawyer and the man in politics have the excitement of the game, whereas I, so frequently during my lectures, feel an impression of empty show.

"Later I was introduced to all the official society, and, of course, to a number of ladies. My imperfect knowledge of English complicated the ceremony. At the end of the procession, like those gathered at our churches for an important wedding, a young woman came up to me and said in French:

"'Do you not recognize me?'

"'Mademoiselle de Sézery.'

"'Yes, I have not changed very much then?'

"'Scarcely at all, Mademoiselle.'

"'You have made me ten years younger just now when you spoke about Dauphiné which I have never revisited--I thank you.'

"'Have you settled in London?'

"'Yes, will you not come to see me?'

"'To-morrow the Historical Society is giving us a reception, and in the evening we are to be at the French Embassy.'

"'I am invited to the Embassy. Well, until to-morrow then! I leave you now to your admirers.'

"She left me with that easy step which was characteristic of her, even in our little mountain tramps when I never saw her fatigued. Her hat, trimmed with a black feather, did not cast sufficient shadow to hide the glowing color of her light chestnut hair."

"May 4th: I was not able to see her until rather late in the evening. I scarcely belonged to myself. At table I saw her from a distance flirting with her neighbor, whose clean-shaven face appeared insignificant to me, despite the reflected honor of aristocratic family.

"She was wearing a mauve dress, that pinky mauve which recalls the shade of fading hydrangea. As when she walked, all the lines of her body seemed to enjoy their freedom. A strap which passed over the shoulder left its curve bare. I believed her to be slighter. Her complexion, a delicate flesh-color, slightly bronzed, as if caressed by the heat of the sun, harmonized perfectly with the delicate mauve of her gown.

"Yesterday, although I had recognized her directly--she is so individual--it was from a motive of politeness that I said she looked as she did ten years ago. This evening she is as young as at the time of my visits to the Castle of Saint Ismier. It is true that at Saint Ismier, I scarcely noticed her. With what was I then occupied? How interesting to find on another's face, after ten years, lines of having lived, and how consoling to recognize thereon the power of youth! However, she has changed. Down there she passed for an independent, bold young girl, eager for all extremes of feeling and thought--Now, I find in her more reserve, a feminine grace, and that indefinable expression seen in those for whom life has its depths--and whose confidence must be slowly gained--For her narrow eyes have long lashes to shield their vague expression: those eyes in which Philippe Lagier (who was mad about them) believed he saw golden flashes.

"About us were some of those Englishwomen, who, living in a country of extreme cold and heat, have complexions only comparable to snow aglow with the light of the setting sun. She was not the most beautiful woman present, far from it, and it can scarcely be said that she was beautiful at all. I know another woman who could much better bear comparison--with the contrast of her black eyes and childlike hair. But one discovers her charm gradually. She is like those waters, whose clearness is at first doubted, because one cannot see to the depths. Her face, for instance, which is less youthful than her body, has a very mobile expression. In repose it shows the thirty years which she must have reached. Then the drooping corners of the lips, the bluish circle which accentuates the sad look in her eyes, the little wrinkles at the meeting of the eyebrows tell of years of struggle, of cares, of years of which I know nothing, but yet can imagine. When she is animated--she was talking to me of my 'Life of Beethoven'--those indications of despair smooth out and are forgotten. The amber complexion colors lightly, and in her eyes I too see golden points, little lights which are not the reflection of the lamp light--but come from a fire within. Finally, her voice, with its deep tone, to which a slight English accent has given a more singing inflection and which lingers delicately on the French words, as if, not having used them for some time, she hesitates to say them, that unusual voice accompanies the words like soft music, and leaves a greater impression on the memory.

"Official receptions give opportunity to be alone in the noise of the crowd, as in the silence of a wood.

"There comes a time when all the places in our hearts seem to be completely filled. One cannot welcome a new face, even that of a woman, without a little wonder, and the discomfort of useless confusion. But when we find again after some years, someone whose real worth we had never suspected, and who was merely congenial, the discovery of that person, added to the attraction of newness, has the advantage of recalling our youthful past, sharing a common interest.

"It seems to me that I discover Mlle. de Sézery in this way.

"When she was ready to go I offered--at all hazards--to escort her home.

"'If you like,' she replied, without showing any preference. Her face had resumed its almost sorrowful immobility. I took more time than she in saying good-by, because of my official position--When I left the embassy, I could not find her. She was already seated in one of those cabs between two large wheels known as a hansom. She called to me, and I got in beside her. On leaving Albert Gate House, we crossed Hyde Park, whose damp verdure shone in places under the electric lamps which encircled it, like a halo, because of a slight fog. From time to time we passed a swift carriage, but the park was otherwise almost deserted. It was very late. After our very animated conversation, we were silent. I felt an impression of loneliness in this unknown quarter of an immense city, whose language I scarcely knew, which recalled my autumnal walks in the woods of Dauphiné. In place of dead leaves I was walking over years. We were thinking of the same thing, and she broke the silence with these words:

"'I hesitated to come this evening. I know why. It seemed that I have just completed a pilgrimage to Saint Ismier. It was so far, and again, it is so near.'

"I looked at her. What a strong effect the sad expression of a face which is pleasing has upon us! But she was loth to reveal her thoughts any further and asked almost indifferently:

"'You are leaving to-morrow?'

"'No, the day after. I want to visit the Tower of London and to see the National Gallery again.'

"A moment later, I added:

"'And to see you, if you will permit me--'

"'You will not have time.'

"'I shall take it.'

"'I am free to-morrow. I will call for you at your hotel. Hotel--?'

"'Northumberland. Northumberland Avenue.'

"'At ten o'clock. The Tower is open only at ten. I will be your guide--shall I?'

"'With pleasure. No one here understands my English. And you will lunch with me.'

"'On one condition. You will dine at Bladen Lodge in the evening.'

"'Bladen Lodge?'

"'Yes, Bolton Gardens. That is my home. I am living in a suite at the hotel. Have you a pencil, a card? Quickly, we are here. This is my address.'

"The rather wide street we were passing through--Bolton Gardens--was lined with private hotels with little gardens in front of them. The cab stopped. Mlle. de Sézery said 'good-by' to me--jumped lightly from the high step, and called to the cabman, whom I did not see, 'Northumberland Avenue.' She was mounting the stairs, when I lost sight of her.

"I was invited for the next evening to Lady Bartlett's, to meet the élite of English society. This forgetfulness of my interests and of propriety is rather like the action of a schoolboy. The number of hansoms was increasing. They drove between the lights of the sidewalks, the horses trotting easily with their light vehicles. In almost every one I saw a man with a woman in her evening wrap. I was nearing the section where the theaters are located. In thus going about London, I was taking in impressions quite new to me."

"May 5th: I scarcely know any place more impressing to a historian than the Tower of London. The past of England, of blood and horror, remains there as its last prisoner. The twelve towers which protect the inner court and are kissed by the morning mist, resemble a gathering of black penitents who accompany a corpse. They shelter the crimes of Edward IV, Richard III, Henry VIII, of Mary Tudor. They have nothing with which to reproach themselves. Each has its tragic memories.

"I had special permission to visit Saint Peter ad Vincula and the neighboring cemetery, of which Macaulay said that there was not a place in the world more steeped in sorrow, because the horror of death is here intensified by the memories of infinite miseries and appalling destinies. In the church, which is too well restored, are interred Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and poor Lady Jane Grey who was beheaded at seventeen, and whose brief youth was constantly threatened with the scaffold. They showed us the exact spot where all three were executed.

"This visit gave me a kind of historical intoxication. With exaltation I explained to my companion the dismal succession of the houses of York and the Tudors. Suddenly fearing ridicule, I interrupted myself:

"'I am boring you, no doubt?'

"And I looked at her. I still see her as I then saw her: her face raised to mine; and her narrow eyes, only half open, increasing their light by contracting, like shutters, which, half-closed, give an exact shape to every sunbeam which penetrates, despite all obstacles. She waited a second or two before replying laughingly.

"'I was about to weep over Jane Grey. It is a pity. The charm is broken.'

"As we left the Tower, we found a desert--compared to the crowded city which we had crossed in going there. The contrast was startling. She explained to me:

"'It is Saturday and past twelve o'clock. All the banks, business houses, exchanges close at noon to-day. The weekly day of rest is thirty-six hours. The Englishman applies himself seriously to his business, devotes himself to it, and then earns his peace of mind.'

"'You like English life?' I asked.

"With what pride she replied:

"'I am free here--'

"I dared not question her any further. While we were lunching in the large dining-room at the hotel, she told me quite freely in a few words how she had gained her independence. An old friend of Saint Ismier days,--married in London, had recommended her to Miss Pearson.

"'Miss Pearson?'

"'Yes, Miss Pearson is quite a personage here. Did you not see her at the Embassy? She has a boarding school for girls. But it is not such as they have in France. She takes only twenty-five select pupils in that fine house to which you escorted me last night. It is very expensive--two hundred and forty pounds a year. There are only young girls of the aristocracy there. The best masters in London come to instruct them. They ride and go into society. I was teaching music and French literature. My extreme love of Beethoven and Chateaubriand helped me, saved me. Now I am Miss Pearson's partner and friend. She is as kind as she is clever. You will dine with her this evening.

"'You live together?'

"'No, in England one has a better understanding of liberty than that. She has given me a little suite which has a private entrance. But we frequently invite each other.'

"To end her short confidences, she added laughingly, as she blushed slightly:

"'I am earning a great deal of money. At least for a woman. Would you have thought me capable of it when you came to my father's house to decipher our old charts for your history of Dauphiné? You made fun of my education then, which was quite scattered and broadened only by chance--'

"'I did not laugh at you--'

"'Oh, yes, you did--you disliked me very much then. Admit it.'

"'You are mistaken. In any case you are mistaken now.'

"It was quite unnecessary to modify by compliments the relation of good-fellowship which we had attained the evening before, and which English customs so willingly permit. She had the wisdom not to heed my remark, and following her own thoughts, she concluded:

"'I have worked a great deal--'

"I then asked her, not indiscreetly--

"'You left very suddenly eight or nine years ago. And you went at once to Miss Pearson?'

"'No, not at once. Three years later.'

"She looked at me, then lowered her head over the custard that had been served to her. But instead of taking the vanilla cream with her spoon, she mechanically put a piece of bread in her mouth. I watched her actions. Again I saw those evidences of distress which had struck me the evening before, and although I cannot explain it, I was convinced, with absolute certainty, that during those three years she had not always had enough to eat.

"She had been obliged to travel the same road as I.

"'We owe no more debts over there,' she answered with a little air of victory. 'So I can go back if I choose.'

"I didn't answer these last words. I understood them better than anyone else. I, too, had known the satisfaction of paying off my father's last creditor with the proceeds of my own work. But for these inglorious struggles, I know one wants neither praise nor pity, and I spared her both.

"One need only cross Trafalgar Square to reach the National Gallery. My visit had to be limited to a few old English masters. I have quite a choice of favorites scattered throughout the world. The 'Musidora' of Gainsborough--that poem of limpid and voluptuous beauty, Romney's 'Lady Hamilton,' caressing Bacchante with the golden skin, blonde, lissome and impassioned--then a few marine pictures of Turner, fireworks on the waters, whose excessive light augments the darkness of the figures. I would make the trip only to see them again. My companion inhaled art as her native air. We experienced the same exaltation and agreed in our interpretation. I have rarely enjoyed so much pleasure in a museum, for it was deepened by that emotion which I knew she was experiencing with me.

"'You should see the English country,' she said. 'Then you would have a better understanding of our painters. The lawns and trees are more beautiful because of the dampness of the air. I have discovered that while riding. That is my favorite pastime. Only I am not alone and the horse does not belong to me.'

"My presence constantly brought back memories of former days. Her eyes grew dim, and that delicate moisture reminded me of eyes which become more expressive when veiled.

"It was painful to me to leave her even for a short time, before I was again to see her at her house. After a few hours one is generally tired of the best company, and it is an art to know when to separate, in order to leave a good impression. As our friendship continued, it revealed new depths to me.

"I was not to see her alone again. Miss Pearson and M. Portal, the French professor, were invited also. The latter is a very young man, distinguished and certainly in love with Mlle. de Sézery. As to Miss Pearson, I was prepared to meet an old governess. She is scarcely forty, and her very smart gown, though subdued, indicated a woman of the world, rather than the principal of a boarding school. After dinner she showed us a programme with this heading: 'Royal Naval and Military Tournament,' and suggested that we go to Olympia where it was taking place.

"'To you,' she assured me, 'this will be more interesting than any of our theaters. I have a box.'

"So it was decided. As a mark of courtesy, I got into the same hansom with Miss Pearson, but throughout the drive she spoke of nothing but Mlle. de Sézery:

"'She is a young girl who is--how do you say? very captivating. You knew her before I did. She is sincere and enthusiastic. When she was introduced to me she was planning to go to India to devote herself to invalids and children. Now, from time to time, she still speaks of going. I have great difficulty in persuading her not to. She is not suited to ordinary life. Lord Howard, do you know him? No, well, Lord Howard, who is highly respected and a millionaire, proposed to her. As his wife she would have held an important position in England. She refused him. Lord Howard is old. M. Portal has no money, no family connections, but he is young and charming. He has adored her for a long time. She listens to him, but reserves her decision.

"'She listens to him?'

"'Yes. In England we listen for a long time to young men before deciding. In France you have to say yes or no at once, when you are not sure.'

"As an unpleasant effect of these confidences, I realized that Mlle. de Sézery, to whom I had not given a thought in nine years, had required but two days to awaken my deepest interest. I was pleased to find the other couple waiting at the entrance to the hall, but I pretended to be particularly interested in Miss Pearson's conversation.

"This tournament--a championship encounter of cavalry, of batteries of artillery and then of marine artillery, was an illustration of English imperialism. Olympia holds ten thousand spectators. It was crowded. Hurrahs welcomed the conquerors. The sailors aroused especial enthusiasm. An immense pride stirred this crowd, when the military bands, the royal Guards in their red coats and enormous busbies--and the bare-legged Scots in kilts passed by. The bagpipes recalled melancholy countries and legends, but the piercing fifes shook my nerves like Rudyard Kipling's stories. They could be heard above the noise of the drums, upon which the drumsticks beat so violently as almost to burst them.

"The exhibition of a tournament of the Tudors' time was too much for us, and we went to have tea with Mlle. de Sézery. I invited the ladies to come to Paris. They graciously promised that they might come, and that was our last word. M. Portal took me home and proposed to show me Piccadilly at night, but I was eager to be alone to write up an account of the day's doings."

"May 6th: At sea. I watched the coast of Dover as long as I could see its sand hills and forts."

"May--still: I am more content at home. I expect nothing, but my thoughts are definitely focussed."

"June 12th: No other woman has her walk, graceful and languid, nor her almond-shaped eyes, with their golden glints, nor the modulating inflection of her voice. When I walk in Paris, I cannot mistake any passer-by for her. This evening I was crossing the Luxembourg garden; as I followed the terrace overlooking the Medicis Fountain, I was surprised to recognize her, and in my astonishment, was allowing her to pass, when she stopped, and blushing, held out her hand:

"'I am pleased to see you again.'

"'You here, Mademoiselle? You were coming to see us perhaps? The Rue Bara is quite near.'

"I noticed that she was in mourning.

"Too candid to mislead me she explained:

"'No, I am going home.'

"'To your home?'

"'Yes,' she replied, smiling, 'Rue Cassini, not far from the observatory. It is a little flat belonging to my aunt from Liéville, an aunt of the Breton sort. She left me her lease and sufficient income on condition that I give up teaching. Poor, dear woman, she chafed under what she called my "loss of caste." She is the only relative who showed me any sympathy in time of need. She offered to have me to live with her, but I preferred my independence.'

"'Now you are rich?'

"'Oh, eight or ten thousand francs a year. If I accept it.'

"'Why should you refuse?'

"'I should have to leave London and begin my life anew. It comes too late--at my age.'

"'You do not think of marrying Lord Howard ... or M. Portal?'

"'Who told you?'

"Her youthful laughter contrasted with her mourning garments and the mention of her age. However, she gave me no direct reply.

"'I never cared to come back to France. This return affects me more than I believed possible. It takes away my courage and determination, which were so natural to me over there. How we do feel the influence of environment! Here I am quite weakened!'

"I reproached her for not informing me of her arrival. I offered her my services and invited her to lunch with me on the following day. She made me ask her many times, and finally accepted. Gracious and shy by turns, she is more irresolute, less determined here than in England.

"While chatting, we stopped at the balustrade which borders the terrace. Between two vases of geraniums, we saw in the foreground, the large central lawn and the flower beds, and as a background, the leaves of the trees which limit the view of the garden. The watering-hose was at work. Children were playing. An old invalid, assisted by his wife, was greedily inhaling the evening air, as though for the last time. Pigeons were flying above us and one of them lighted on the raised hand of a stone goddess. It was the delicious hour when everything assumes a golden hue, when a man's brain, after the day's work, is unable to resist the soothing influence of such impressions.

"I watched her going toward the Avenue de l'Observatoire until she was out of sight. However, I preferred her in London, struggling bravely and somewhat subdued."

"June 13th: In inviting her to my home, I had no other thought than to establish pleasant relations and to give Elizabeth a friend of stimulating influence, because of her active intelligence and the charm of her society. No, truly, I had no other thought. Had she even inspired in me a more passionate interest, I should never have permitted this emotion to go beyond that inner sanction, where each one retains his individual liberty. I should have conquered my exaltation and bitterness alone.

"Well, after Anne de Sézery's departure, I asked Elizabeth her impression. I had told her that morning that Mlle. de Sézery, completely crushed by fate, had remolded her life.

"'Yes, I know she has been pretty,' she answered. 'But now she has too little hair and too big a mouth.'

"I had not noticed it. But I knew her eyes, her face, her figure. Why so much injustice? I was not seeking a detailed description. When everything has been made easy for us, when we have exerted neither effort nor will-power, why show ourselves to be so miserably contemptuous? There are words so unkind that they become fixed in our memory like milestones and serve to measure the distance which separates us from those who have uttered them."

"June 25th: I made no attempt after this setback to invite Anne de Sézery to my house again. We are near neighbors: I am going to call on her in the Rue Cassini. It is a little deserted street, hidden by the trees on the Avenue de l'Observatoire. No one goes through it, and one might think oneself very far from Paris. We are both going away--she to London, where she must discontinue her former life, and I to the country. Each visit should have been the last. But day by day our departure was deferred. In the evening after my work I meet her returning from her walk, and we both find relaxation in a few minutes' conversation.

"'In England,' she had said almost at the beginning of this new friendship, 'I could see you frequently without any difficulty. Here, I do not know ...'

"'But since we are going away?'

"With no relatives, she was lost in Paris, as I was in my unhappy home life."

"June 27th: Little Marie Louise asked me why I no longer take her out walking in the evening."

"June 29th: Visited the Carnavalet Museum with Anne de Sézery. The story of the Revolution is an endless source of pathos which one can never exhaust.

"We have agreed that next winter I shall show her an unknown Paris, the Paris which bears traces of the long centuries and of great men. With her, interchange of thought is unlimited. There is always a little embarrassment when I arrive; the first subject of conversation dispels it. She assures me that I make her live an intellectual life such as one does not know in London."

"June 30th: The farewell.

"'You will marry in England.'

"'I think not.'

"'However, you will marry.'

"'I am thirty. I am afraid I shall be unable to make up my mind. When I was quite young I expected so much life and love.'

"'And now?'

"'Now I demand more.'

"'Would you not come to Dauphiné?'

"'To what purpose? Go to Saint Ismier for me some day. You will tell me when you return if the château has not been repaired, if the trees in the park have not been pruned or cut down, if my country of former days is not made unrecognizable. I hope it is not.'

"My good-by was so inadequate. The feeling of separation crushed the words on my lips. But she? English habits have accustomed her to these companionships, to these friendships, which are less common, more difficult in France. As a result of my consideration and her natural candor, I trust that ours may last for a long time."

"Saint Martin d'Uriage--July. A letter from London, confident and calm, too calm, calm like the summer days that I detest when not a leaf stirs in the dry air."

"August: Now her letters come regularly from the other side of the Channel. The appearance of English stamps is accepted as a matter of course. Is it not natural that I should have made acquaintances during my last voyage?"

"September: From week to week this strange friendship draws us closer together, despite the distance. And I am adapting myself to accept its unrealized desires and incompleteness, for the sake of the interest it adds to my life. In these September days whose changing freshness is at the same time an indication of decline, I feel I am unfaithful to her, in forgetting her for the gentle fall of the first leaves, which drop off without apparent reason for the distressing peace of the evening. Unless it be that without my knowledge she is giving a new interest to these impressions! Our love is growing, so that it forms a part of all our thoughts which scatter to the four winds, and is influenced by nature, which, by ceaseless activity, awakens our emotions and then focusses all our power of feeling. Have I written correctly: 'Our love'?"

"September 28th: Her letter is dated from Paris. She has left England forever. 'I am leaving ten years behind me,' she tells me--'the most beautiful years of one's life which have given me the impression of years of more mature age. Am I an old maid or a débutante? I no longer know. I see my youth behind me and I have made nothing of it. I have lived so much, and yet so little. I feel happy, care-free and weak at the same time. From this side of the water I lost all my self-confidence, and I find myself unsettled. I miss the English life. In France you do not know the joy of the open air, of independence, of the honesty of friendship. So we have given each other our friendship: do you know that that means much, and is a very serious pact? I fear that you did not realize it, and before we meet again I want to remind you....'

"Was the tone of my last letters unconsciously impassioned? My thoughts fly to her like arrows, and do they not strike her heart?"

"Paris, October 15th: I have returned to Paris to make some historical researches without which I could not go on with my books. I left my wife and children at Grenoble; they will join me in the beginning of November.

"No, I came back to see her, and I see her every day at the same hour in the evening."

"October 18th: We have had our first discussion. She had heard during the day of the remarriage of a friend in England who had divorced her husband.

"'Has she children?' I asked.

"'Yes, why?'

"'Because I believe children make marriage indissoluble.'

"Surprised, she asked me:

"'Is that a religious conviction?'

"'I have no religion. Catholicism, moreover, does not permit divorce under any circumstances. There are other reasons.'

"I explained mine to her, influenced by the interest of society and the primordial importance of the family. She naturally believed in the rights of the individual.

"'We must above all be sincere. A home cannot exist without truth.'

"In Dauphiné she had already condemned those unchangeable principles to which one cannot give expression to-day without audacity. Life has only served to confirm her desire of revolt.

"'Our feelings may change,' I said to her. 'Facts which are the result of them do not change. These facts have engendered responsibility, created obligations.'

"'They do not necessitate the loss of one's liberty.'

"'But there are no free men.'

"'Then is there no longer truth?'

"I defended this miserable lie, so derided, which insures men's peace in every society, because one is not capable of hearing the truth. One minute she detested me--I could not bear it, and I discontinued that tone of sarcasm which allows us to treat serious subjects too lightly.

"'We have liberty only in the inner sanction. The chief aim of marriage is not the happiness of husband and wife.'

"She started.

"'Certainly not. It is the foundation of a family, the child. That alone gives marriage a positive value. After the birth of the child life ceases to be a search for happiness. That event ends that period of sentimental restlessness of which Nature no longer takes notice. And if it is not suppressed, at any rate, it maintains a fixed course from which we can never stray with impunity.'

"As she listened to me without replying, I picked up a volume of Byron which she was translating.

"'Be careful of these romanticists. Their bouquets are poisoned. They make the world reflect their point of view. They believe we have every right to the highest realization, and that our personality creates the worth of the world. The more unbridled it is, the more powerful it seems to them. They add the decadence of their emotions to that of their minds.'

"From intellectual habit, I waxed enthusiastic in this defense of the social order, to which I have devoted so much thought and effort. She looked at me with her golden eyes, which can assume fleeting expression of unutterable woe--when they become like those of wild beasts in their cage: she said nothing, but her look disturbed me.

"'So,' she said at last, 'if love comes too late, it is not worthy of a sacrifice?'

"I had not foreseen what one must always foresee with a woman, however intelligent: the immediate application of our general ideas to the present experiences.

"'Yes,' she answered in her musical voice, 'the earth bums a long time with a slow fire. And one can always break one's heart. Is it not so?'

"These words were uttered in such an impersonal manner that any personal allusion was excluded. I could not discover in them the confession I was trembling to find. I was silent. In venturing into this discussion, I did not expect to be struck with my own weapons.

"Darkness, although not precipitated by the half-stripped trees near the avenue, was gradually coming on. And I carried away from her home an uncertainty, an unspeakable distress."

"October 20th: Nobody knows I have returned to Paris. However, finding Mlle. de Sézery's door shut, I paid a visit to my old friend, Doctor Heaume, who is incurably ill, as a result of excessive expenditure of mental energy. I found him seated, or rather strapped to his work table from which he no longer has strength to rise. Only his eyes are alive and pitiful. One knows from a distance that his cheeks are already paralyzed. With superhuman energy, he is completing his treatise on nervous diseases. Then he will die.

"'If I cease working,' he said to me, 'my trouble is unbearable.'

"His pain is an unfortunate marriage which has destroyed him day by day. On account of his children he has borne everything without a murmur. Yesterday I admired him: to-day I pity him."

"October 22nd: The lack of outdoor life has broken down Anne's health. We now go out together every afternoon. On our return, we have tea and she sings Grieg or Schumann for me, or songs new to me, of coming Russian musicians, Mouscorgsky or Rimsky Korsakof. Her musical memory makes it possible to leave the lamps unlighted until night has come on. In the twilight one is so happy. But in her dark drawing-room her powerful voice is cramped, as is her soul in life.

"Paris is kind to intimate sentiments. One feels oneself as lost and free as in a desert.

"Apropos of some character in history or a novel, we often speak of love. I concluded by asking her in the most serious manner this question which was tormenting me:

"'You have already loved?'

"'Oh, already,' she replied, laughing. 'At thirty, my friend?'

"'That is not an answer.'

"'Well, yes. Does that interest you?'

"'Very much. Many times?'

"'No, once. And other times a little.'

"'Tell me.'

"But she immediately became serious. 'To tell about one's love means to give up part of it.'

"'Are you still in love?'

"'Leave me my secrets.'

"This scene took place in the Luxembourg Garden at the close of day. The girl had turned her head away. Before her and back of the trees, stirred by the autumn winds, there were lights in the sky. A roll of drums warned us that it was time to leave. I looked at the graceful, supple body which has already been embraced. How could I have doubted it? Her woman's charm is so complete. I shall always see that spot where I have been jealous, so horribly jealous."

"October 23rd: I am no longer master of my feelings. In the midst of my work, I must let my thoughts go free--they may return wounded or tired. And I see myself going adrift.

"I did not seek complex happiness. She whose outlook on life I have tried to broaden will never know how she has disappointed my hopes. I did not ask the impossible of her. She was satisfied to accept her lot. But so often one does not know the meaning of that word: to accept.

"Am I quite sure that I am not seeking excuses for the passion which absorbs me? Elizabeth has held herself aloof from what is essential to my life. Had she not done so, would I be more certain of my heart? There is always within us something unknown which circumstances reveal to us, and surprised, we find ourselves to be on the borders of youth, richer in desire and weaker in will.

"I observe this ebb and flow of contradictory emotions. Does not each and everyone of them indicate some portion of my ego? Happy are those who realize unity within themselves and know their own limitations! I have left off the work I had in hand to undertake a new work. I am applying myself enthusiastically to it, and when I stop short, I am exhausted. I find myself in turn more powerful and weaker. Exaltation is only a transitory condition, and without it I am helpless."

"October 25th: As each day passes, it speaks to me of separation, of absence. The restriction of our liberty will be painful to me. And the precarious season adds its restlessness to that growing in me.

"This evening it was so fine that we went to the Bois in an open carriage. It takes us a long time to choose the horses when we drive together--she will not permit the coachman to whip them.

"'Where are the English vehicles?' she asks with regret.

"We walked side by side in the Allée of Mortemart, near Auteuil. It is a road little frequented, and there the dead leaves had not been swept away. They were heaped up at the edges. As the wind rose, they began to turn about in a whirl and then lay down again. Those remaining on the branches rustled with a crackling noise. We waited to see them fall. When we returned, Anne pointed them out to me:

"'It seems as though we are abandoning defenseless beings.'

"And just then one of them broke off, hesitated an instant, then blew on my knees, as a butterfly struck by death. It was a golden beech leaf. I looked at Anne and noticed her pallor.

"'You are cold?' I asked.

"'A little,' she answered.

"The sun had set without our noticing it. Dampness was rising from the ground; the morning rain had not had time to dry. The mist was still under the trees. The air we were breathing was full of malaria germs. Lacking a better covering, I asked the coachman for one, and wrapped it about her shoulders. She did not refuse it and smiled to thank me. She had never seemed more delicately charming to me. At the Porte Dauphiné we found a closed carriage."

"October 28th: Why did I speak? She had accepted my invitation to spend the day at Chantilly. To-morrow we should not be able to go. To-morrow my house will no longer be empty. We had lunched at the keeper's near the Château of the White Queen. The weather was so fine that we were able to remain outdoors a long time, and we had a good view of the pond of Comelle which continues along the Thève and the zigzag slopes of the forest. We could even see, standing out in the heart of the wood, the black tree-trunks growing more and more slender, the ground being covered with a mass of their leaves. However, they still retained sufficient foliage to show us from a distance, like a bouquet, their varied tones of gold and reddish copper.

"I suggested that we walk along an unsanded path as far as the crossways of the Table. About her head and over her neck floated one of those white veils such as women are wearing nowadays, which seem befitting to a certain type of face, as sea gulls to a ship on the water. From time to time I watched her as she walked. She trod so gently on the dead leaves that they scarcely rustled. I followed the delicacy of her movements. In her long falcon eyes flashed sparks of pleasure. The sun was already setting in the woods through which we could see the horizon; the days have grown so short. A pleasant forest whose extent is not overwhelming like the German forests--whose order rests and soothes, instead of suffocating one, and which invites us to the hunt, to merry-making, to sentimental walks. A stag, crossing an avenue, looked at us fearlessly. At the crossways of the Table we saw twelve short roads comparable under their light archways to a dozen slender rays.

"Our return was much slower. I felt her nearness to me. I should only have had to bend a little to take her in my arms. But the expression of her eyes often seems somewhat distant to me. I walked more slowly and said to her:

"'Why do we realize life so powerfully when we are together?'

"'Because we are friends.'

"She understood immediately whither I was tending. Her face is so expressive that I read her impressions at once. She was overwrought. She tried to stop me.

"'Say no more,' she begged.

"It was too late. She realized, even if she did not already know it, the place she filled in my heart. With teeth clenched, trembling and shrinking, taken unawares as a stream which freezes, she listened to my love. Was I mistaken in believing I saw her grow and brighten? She did not hide from me her agitation, nor even her joy.

"'I should have interrupted you; I had not the courage. Forgive me. I have not been happy, and it is so inspiring for a woman to hear a man like you say these things, which have entered into my soul as the sun into the forest. I did not know how to resist them. Be indulgent with me--why have you come so late into my life?'

"'Too late?'

"'Yes.'

"'I had forgotten. You still love?'

"She dismissed my emotion with a smile.

"'Yes, perhaps.'

"'Let us go back,' I said, somewhat brusquely. 'The train to Paris leaves at five.'

"'We shall take the next one.'

"'No, Anne, it is better to go back now.'

"And I explained to her gently, as an arrangement of necessity, that it was better that we did not see each other again, at least, not for a while. I was amazed at the peace which followed my exaltation. She protested energetically, almost violently.

"'No, no, I cannot lose you. You have become indispensable to my moral life. Since I met you my dull days have taken on color. I do not wish to fall back into my old state of indifference.'

"The unexpected outburst surprised me.

"'But how about me?'

"'Cannot a man love unselfishly? I shall help you.'

"'To forget you?'

"'Yes. You will have no difficulty. In seeing me frequently you will not fail to see that I am no longer beautiful. A sincere friendship is not impossible. Will you not try? I ask it of you.'

"Her request was disconcerting insistence. By what strange and sudden change was she now pleading with me? I concluded by saying:

"'Let us decide nothing, Anne. Circumstances will decide for us.'

"'No, not circumstances. We! I assure you that we can.'

"During this discussion darkness had come on. Between the branches the sky was crimson. We had to hurry to escape the cold. In the carriage we looked at each other without speaking. The light which served as a background to the tree-trunks grew fainter by degrees, and the forest embraced us with added mystery. The wheels made no noise; only the sound of the horses' hoofs could be heard sinking into the thick bed of sand as we rode along the avenue. It was a dull, regular sound. Nothing disturbed our emotion. I took her hand which was still ungloved and raised it to my lips. It was frozen, but its touch was like fire to me.

"'Friends, are we not?' she said to me later as she left me.

"She smiled. I feared to promise more than I could perform, so I said nothing, nothing. The impressions of nature, of art which I have enjoyed alone all these years, that I wanted to enjoy alone, to gain a deeper understanding of them, I now share with her. She has broadened my outlook on life."

"November: I have hardly been out of the house for a fortnight. I tried to become absorbed in my work. At the time I generally went to see her, I feel as though fever had attacked me. No longer able to bear it, I told her so last evening.

"'Why do you not come?' she replied, laughing. 'I shall give you some quinine.'"

"December: Every time I come back from the Rue Cassini, it seems to me, as I enter my house, that I put on a mask or hide something I have stolen. It is a sensation of cruel restraint. But the welcome I receive dissipates it at once. There is no comparison whatsoever between the intellectual stimulation which I experience in my unlimited conversations with Anne, and the colorless calm which awaits me at home. I now feel the need of that thought and our excitement to make me know that I am alive. And I am growing accustomed to this sort of double life.

"How can a woman so blindly accept the deepest of all separations, the moral separation? After more than seven years of marriage, I am still amazed at it. She lacks curiosity as she does distrust. The daily round satisfies her. Just now I was studying her under the lamplight. She is scarcely thirty, and her expressionless face reveals no doubt of the heart, no personal thought. She can see in me neither a new joy, nor despair. I am all in all to her, but I do not know to-day how I have been able to please her. I no longer think of her love. Nevertheless I am so weak or so complex that her youth still touches me, and that my desire to animate her, futile as it is, is not entirely crushed. I have loved her too much for her happiness or grief ever to be indifferent to me, yet I am giving myself with delight to the danger which threatens us. The younger we are, the less we can discern in reality the object of our devotion. We modify it, we recreate it, and later, when we awake to our mistake, we blame the object, instead of our capacity to idealize. We should know how to make use of the truth, which, although different, still has its attractions. But we do not forgive it for having deceived us.

"What I am passionately fond of never interests Elizabeth. She does not know or else she disregards the treasures of life. Either through thoughtlessness or indifference, she takes no part in it and narrows her life, when I try to enlarge it. We live together: she knows nothing of me and never will. There is neither discussion nor intimacy between us. It is the peace of the household, of so many households unconsciously divided against themselves. Children and the active life of Paris give to this secret divorce an appearance of harmony."

"December 28th: Marie Louise and Philippe are asked to two children's matinées on the same day. Philippe would try to get out of going to both of them, but his sister will give up neither. She is offered her choice: she goes from one to the other, and as soon as we wish to carry out her decision, she takes it back. Her desire for amusement is not gratified by one affair."

"January 1st, 1905: What has this New Year in store for us?

"Anne is very sad on these days of family gatherings, and wishes to hide it from me.

"'One cannot help regretting Christmas,' she said to me with a smile, belied by the drooping corners of her mouth.

"Two or three English friends on a trip came to greet her effusively. After they had gone, I said to her:

"'Everybody kisses to-day. Is it not my turn?'

"She began to laugh.

"'There is no mistletoe, my friend. Ah, if there were only mistletoe!'

"'Would you go under it with me?'

"'In Paris your drawing-rooms are so small.'

"My exaltation of the Autumn has quieted itself, or rather has become as the red leaves inlaid in a Galle vase that I gave her as a souvenir. That which I thought impossible is materializing little by little. A lasting tie ill-defined and somewhat uncertain is binding us. I prefer her glance to her eyes, her voice to her lips, her friendship to my desire."

"January 2nd: Dr. Heaume died yesterday, regardless of so untimely a date. I saw him in his bed. He had regained his stature. His face was impressively calm, with a serenity which startles one--yes, startles and attracts--on features that have only appeared sorrowful and tortured.

"In reality, he adored life. It was his only faith. Instead of finishing his treatise on nervous diseases, he had begun a study of the development of the passions. He multiplied the reasons for prolonging his life and did not fear failing his masterpiece as everyone had failed him.

"At his side, his wife was weeping as if she had always recognized the rare force of that spirit now fled.

"Overcome by the realization of so much lost power, I went to share my reflections with Anne. Even our silence is the echo of our thoughts. At home mine have no echo."

"January: Visited the Conciergie together. One of her ancestors was killed in this court on the first day of the September massacres.

"'He once appeared to me,' she told me.

"At the beginning of our conversations there is always a short digression. Her indifferent manner keeps me on the alert; then I find again her candor and her deep soul. It always requires time to harmonize.

"She does not try to convince me. I ask at all hazards:

"'Where and when?'

"'Do you want to know? It was in a lawyer's office.'

"'An extraordinary place for a ghost.'

"'Yes, they were advising me to give up my father's estate. He looked at me severely and showed me this wound. The dead always advise us to consent. They don't have to bear the consequences. At that time I thought that there were no useless sacrifices.'

"'And now?'

"'All sacrifices are useless.'

"Her golden eyes fixed me boldly as if she were defying me. I recalled her look of pride in London when she told me she had paid the last family debt.

"Along the quay, behind Notre Dame, she talked to me of her childhood, of her early youth in Dauphiné. It is a subject to which she seldom refers. Her recollection of our meeting is more exact than mine. She recalls forgotten circumstances. I was shy, unsociable and proud in those days.

"'A little absurd, is it not?'

"She replies gravely:

"'I recognized your superiority.'

"'What superiority?'

"She is seeking a definition, which is always embarrassing.

"'The passion to see clearly, but Philippe Lagier had it too; above all the power of never knowing a state of indifference, the wonderful instinct of all the innumerable resources of life.'

"'Thank you,' I said, smiling. 'You are too kind.'

"But she retained her serious expression."

"January 26th: It is all over! Our walks in Paris, our free talks at the fireside, at least for a time. She leaves to-night for London to visit Miss Pearson for three weeks!

"Something more than absence saddens our farewells. Shall we find intact on her return this rather diverse friendship in which we have known such rare joy? I tell her of my doubts.

"'I am half English,' she replies. 'The country is so attractive to me because of the habit of self-government one acquires there and the evidence of honesty in the ideal of friendship. Do you not owe to it this friendship of which you are speaking? A Frenchwoman would never have asked you for it.'

"'Is this friendship singular, Anne? I know nothing of your life over there. Only, I am uneasy. Uneasy and jealous.'

"'Have you no confidence in me? You have the essential.'

"'And the rest?'

"'The rest is not worth while.'

"There is something in these words which leaves a deep melancholy. Before leaving her I looked at the ceiling.

"'Still no mistletoe?'

"She laughed with all her youthfulness.

"'Still no mistletoe!'

"'I shall bring some for your return.'

"'Not till next Christmas, mind!'"

"March 26th: When I saw her again two months later, I verified the presentiment I had on her departure. Something inexplicable has changed our relations. Anne is more reserved, and again at moments almost wild. Will time give back to us the harmonious peace of former days?

"Her letters, though long and frequent, full of details of her daily doings, make me realize this. Another feeling absorbs her, or with her love of independence, she does not care to commit herself."

"April 2nd: Little by little the same passionate taste for conversation draws us together. She is exalted, and I find her again as she was, and all of a sudden her expression becomes tense, as if she regretted giving way to her feelings. There is a tragedy going on in her of which I know nothing."

"April 5th: I know now. And after the shock of my discovery, I continue in that happy state of languor in which one prolongs and deepens an emotion, desiring to retain it in the present, rather than abandon it to the past.

"I received a letter from Miss Pearson to-day begging me to use my influence with Anne, in favor of a marriage with that Lord Howard, who has asked her so often. There is no longer any thought of M. Portal. In England questions concerning fortune, position and family connections are of the greatest importance. Miss Pearson enumerated to me the advantages of such a union, which would place our friend in her proper rank. She appealed with authority to the confidence Mlle. de Sézery had in me.

"A curious mission which has upset me! However, I went to see Anne at my usual time, and without comment, gave her the letter. I still see the flame which flashed from her eyes.

"'Miss Pearson,' she said angrily to me, 'is hateful. She had no right to--Why did she keep me from going to India?'

"'You wanted to go?'

"'Yes, last month.'

"'Without telling me? Why?'

"'I do as I please.'

"This cruel suppression of our friendship offended me. I rose to leave.

"'So you will be able to decide without me.'

"She hastened to detain me. I have never seen her so overwrought, so pale. Her long golden eyes were veiled. I am powerless before their sorrowful expression.

"'No, no,' she said. 'You will choose for me.'

"Conciliated by her agitation, I made a gesture of despair.

"'Oh! I ...'

"'Speak!'

"'How could I live without you?'

"And the fire instantly reappeared in her glance and lit up her face, which, in its changing expression, revealed her thoughts. I could not fail to notice it.

"'Never mention this marriage to me again,' she said.

"I had recovered possession of myself and pleaded another cause.

"'It is not a question of myself, Anne. This marriage would give you, if not the joy of youth, at least peace and that distraction which one readily finds in a circle suitable to one's tastes and personal value.'

"'You no longer love me?'

"'There was no question of my love,' I said.

"'You would give it up? I am no longer capable of a sacrifice. Life has demanded top many of me.'

"'From you?'

"'You did not understand? For ten years...."

"She was quite close to me. I had only to hold out my arms for her to come and rest against my heart, with her head on my shoulder.

"'_Anne_--'

"'Let us say no more. I am so ashamed of myself--'

"I felt her all a-quiver. How long did we remain so? Those wonderful moments had a greater weight--the weight of years. The April evening was prolonging its light, its invitation of Spring. Our love made us tremble together. When she gained control of herself she lifted her bowed head and smiled like a young, cajoling girl:

"'You did not bring the mistletoe?'

"I touched her burning cheek. I wished to touch her lips, to possess that which had betrayed her secret. She did not permit me. With a quick movement she tore herself away from me.

"'No, no,' she murmured, frightened, 'our love must suffice.'

"'It is my first kiss.'

"Surprised, I repeated. 'The first?'

"She blushed delightfully.

"'Yes, at my age. Now I should like to die. It would be the last.'

"'Anne!'

"Thus our happiness was tinged with melancholy. How should we now unite the past with the future? Do not let us look so far ahead. Let us content ourselves to-night in exhausting the strength of our emotion. To-morrow we shall make lasting resolutions."

"April 6th: Eleven o'clock at night. My home is broken up. I should never have destroyed it. Anne knew it. I cannot write of this scene. I am crushed. Shall I never see Marie Louise and Philippe again? Shall I allow them to be torn away from me? Elizabeth has misunderstood, belittled and lowered our love; so I have rebelled. She has reproached me for lying to her, and she was incapable of understanding or hearing the truth about our life. It is her desire. I am free. And this thought obsesses me: if Anne were not to give herself to me now that my love is the only thing left to me--"

V

ELIZABETH'S AWAKENING

The remainder of the note-book consisted of blank pages. Albert had given up his diary on that date, and the sudden silence, after so long a confession, spoke volumes. Elizabeth turned over the leaves till the last, seeking an excess of sadness with which to avoid reflection. At last, she lost all external pretext of escaping from her own thoughts. She looked at the clock: it was three in the morning. Her body on fire, she dragged herself mechanically to the window and opened it. Fainting, she sought relief, she wanted to call for help. The peace of night prevented her crying aloud. In place of the moonlight she had left, she found herself face to face with darkness, and went back to put out the lamp. Then she rested on her elbows.

She could distinguish only the vague slope of the meadows and the dark mass of the mountain on the other side of the valley. But, over the black arch stretched like a velvet cloth, countless stars stood out in relief. She saw such nights every time she returned from an evening party. Nevertheless, this one was different--new. She inhaled its sweet breath eagerly. The air breathed out by the rose trees in the garden, and the pine trees in the park laden with a healthy scent, caressed her like the hand of a friend. She felt a cold delicate touch on her overheated cheek, and leaned forward to get the full benefit of its relief. And in her gratitude she noticed the different lights, the continued throbbing of the stars whose multitude had never interested her. One particularly, which was nearing the summit of Les Quatre Seigneurs rapidly changed color, being alternately green and rose like an opal. So the night, which, in her indifference, had thus far seemed only lifeless chaos, stirred itself, took pity on her, comforted her as a living being, as the only living being capable of lightening her despair.

But this same night, whose pure calmness she invoked, was wrapping in its coolness of closing summer, the love of Albert and Anne. By a sudden change she detested it, and called for daylight, less indulgent to lovers, and therefore less distressing to her. After accepting her desertion patiently and calmly for five months, she was now rebelling and wringing her hands, as she reproached the night. Ignorance, the feeling of offended dignity, contempt, no longer protected her from the jealous fury which possessed her. They were together at this hour--side by side, and too late she knew the strength of that passion which had attracted them, the one to the other, and which she herself, by leaving him, had allowed to develop. This Anne de Sézery whom she had received in her home without heeding her ardent nature, whom she had never looked at except to find fault with her--of whom she never thought till then, except to attribute to her the basest of motives, she now pictured with her golden eyes, her face lighted up by emotion and the intellectual delight which emanated from her. She hated her--while she tried to be just to her. She was keenly alive to her suffering, as though she had just been deceived.

A cry which echoed from afar aroused her. It was one of those calls which the shepherds send from one hill to another: a prolonged and lingering note--followed by a sharp trill which seemed to mock her. It was repeated once, then again, growing more distant, less distinct. The silence added to it, accentuated its dual expression of mockery and despair. Was it the signal of a lover or the good-by of shepherd? Elizabeth, overwhelmed, listened for its repetition. The return to her thoughts tired her so, that she longed to find rest from the expression of her sorrow in any external manifestation, even in discordant music. But in the silence, she surrendered again to the loneliness of love. Had she ever felt that love before, or, so aroused, was she experiencing it for the first time? It dispelled triumphantly, with brutality and certainty, all the contempt she had felt in the past few weeks, since she had known of the secret wickedness going on about her in the name of love. She even forgave Philippe Lagier his impertinent confession, for the sake of the warning he had given her at Grenoble, which now came back to her memory like a realized prediction.

"To love, if one sincerely loves you," he had said--"if one spares you every difficulty, every effort, is not to one's credit. To love when you are deserted, betrayed, forgotten, when your heart is trampled upon,--that is love."

Why had she then rebelled against such just words? Albert had trampled on her heart all that night--had she ever loved him as she did at that hour when she was opening her eyes wide to the obscurity of life? The morning when he had first whispered in her ear the words that every young girl expects and which do not surprise her, the afternoon when her fiancé had shyly touched her cheek with his lips at St. Martin d'Uriage, the evening she became a wife without even understanding how to make of her suffering an offering of love, none of these experiences had brought her memories, comparable in depth of feeling to this distress which was crushing her. Did she have to lose her happiness to know its value?--And she had even lost it without understanding it. That her humiliation might be complete, she had to learn it from another love which was passed over her, like an infectious illness, devouring her with its fire.

The increasing coolness of those last hours of night did not calm her fever. The wind grew cooler, as it touched her face--She clung to the window sash with all her strength to support herself. So many and such overwhelming thoughts crushed her at the same time. Murmurs, then short stifled sobs from the children's room, made her start, listen, but she did not move from her place. Contrary to her habits, she did not go to the door, but let Marie Louise, whose voice she had distinguished, fight alone against her nightmare. She shut herself up savagely in her despair, and the last sentence of Albert's diary, so cruel in its selfishness, became intelligible to her. The little girl had gone to sleep again when she felt able to go to her.

"The cup ... of happiness" she thought in recalling the last words the child had said.

She had held it in her hands--the divine cup--She had received it as a treasure which was her due, and scarcely noticing it, she had quaffed it unconcernedly, and had then allowed it to be taken from her.

How had she been unable to suspect what life could hold for her? She no longer defended herself against Albert's accusations. To defend herself meant to increase the influence of the rival. She preferred to be the guilty one. Yes, in her home, one breathed the odor of death, and not the fascination of life. Instead of a warm light on entering, one met darkness--cold.

"Why," she beseeched in condemning her past, "why was I not warned? I was so young, so simple and ignorant. Would I not have molded myself? Young girls do not know. No one tells them that everyone has to make his own home and watch his fire. They collect stones by chance, and the first breath of wind disperses their ashes. It is wicked not to help them."

But her memory unhesitatingly gave her the answer. She remembered all the circumstances, particularly frequent in the first days of their marriage, when Albert had tried to shake off her apathy, to give to her a little vital energy. In traveling, at the fireside, in the wintertime, in Paris, on the terrace at Saint Martin, in the summer, he had tried to vivify the past, nature, art, books, the fleeting moment. How much time and effort he had used to try to interest her, to awaken her passion, to increase the value of her days! She thought of this with tenderness and understood it to be proofs of his love.

"He did love me. He loved me before he loved her--When he spoke to me enthusiastically, feelingly, about his favorite works or things of the past, it was love that he was holding out to me. To understand life one must love it--one must love. I see it now...."

She had built up that wall against which all force is useless: the power of unresponsiveness. Her resistance had been constant. To her understanding, to live meant to let live. Had she not filled daily her petty duties as mistress of the house, and her simple maternal duties as well? What more could she do? The bitterness her husband sometimes manifested, which he rapidly overcame, but which showed frequently on his face when he came home, had seemed unjust. Now she explained it to herself. The home lacked a living, happy soul to give meaning to the humblest cares; to the most trifling needs, diffusing that spirit of harmony, relaxation, peace, which allows the man of mental activity to follow the course of his thoughts, to gather them and afterwards give expression to them--not in muddled sentences, but with quiet authority, capable of soothing and comforting other people, and awakening them to a realization of the flight of time. So, by an exalted intuition, vague and pathetic--she began to understand the rôle that fate had assigned to her in which she had failed.

Her children had appreciated their father more than she had. When they welcomed him with their laughter, with their shouts of joy, and when they unceasingly asked him for new toys or stories, they were instinctively paying him homage. They attributed to him the power of doubling their happiness in life. And he himself met with only indolence or indifference, as if, in spite of his strength, he never had need of rest and relaxation. Year by year he felt himself more alone and unsatisfied. And other women, noticing that loneliness, waited upon him, and recognizing his superiority, tempted him. She had never guessed at this menace which hung over her. She had not anticipated Anne de Sézery. Without doubt she was the cause and origin of her own unhappiness.

She hastily withdrew from the window, seeing before her like an apparition, the most cruel passage of the diary, which entered so deeply into the heart of man,--that referring to the mystery, to the fatality of love,--that passage which dared to express the thought that even in happiness, one can never be quite sure of one's desires. She held out her arms to push it from her. No, no, it would have been a warning to her to be on her guard. Defenseless, she had been surprised in her sleep. But her defeat was irreparable. The other one had understood too well what she had neglected. Reaching this last stage of the mad course that her thoughts followed without direction, she gave way to her despair. Why had she not been so cruelly wounded when she discovered her husband's treachery? Sorrow was like love, an abyss whose depths can never be explored. The thought which took hold of her with all its force, which was like a death watch at the side of a departed relative, instantly transformed her knowledge, but not her courage. She saw clearly into the depths of her own soul, but she fathomed her weakness and gave way to it. Of what value to discover one's mistake so late when all was lost?

Night was stealing away like a wolf. Over the mountain tops the first lights of dawn were appearing, all golden on a sky of green, a sky of a color, so delicate, so pure. The stars were fading away, melting into the fresh air as snow in the heat. Suddenly Elizabeth felt the touch of the sun upon her face which was bathed in tears. Overcome by her sorrow, she shuddered and put her hands over her eyes, as if to protect them from this unwelcome contact. The light shone through her fingers. All about her the garden, woods, meadows, all nature, was awakening. The trees, which had been so indistinct, were outlined against the golden light which was rising and filling space. In the bushes the birds were welcoming the return of day with joyous song. It was life which was again coming into its own with a full sense of possession. She too was filled with a mad longing to live.

To live? She did not know how, she would try. She would struggle against her stupidity, her apathy, her ignorance. For herself? It was too late. For her children who should not be like her. But was it not difficult then to think of anyone's else happiness than her own? Timidly she went to her mirror, and beautified by the dawn as were the flowers, she saw herself, although pale and with reddened eyes, withal still so young, that hope entered into her heart like a sunbeam.

"I am young. She is not so young."

She tried to smile at herself but could not. The dawning day bathed her in all its beauty. Nevertheless, she trembled with cold.

"The day--Life--They do not revive me."

Turning from her mirror, she concentrated her mind, her poor tired mind, on a single idea--which became the axis of her actions, as a star that of the world.

"Now, yes, now, I know that I love him. And I hope for nothing from him but sorrow...."

And she understood vaguely that this exaltation of suffering signified a new life dawning for her.