ave fallen in love with this
landscape."

Her laughter was almost hysterical, but to her husband it sounded
natural. She sprang gaily down into the hollow pathway and vanished.

"What?" she cried, when they had left M. d'Aiglemont far behind.
"So soon? Is it so soon? Another moment, and we can neither of us be
ourselves; we shall never be ourselves again, our life is over, in
short--"

"Let us go slowly," said Lord Grenville, "the carriages are still some
way off, and if we may put words into our glances, our hearts may live a
little longer."

They went along the footpath by the river in the late evening light,
almost in silence; such vague words as they uttered, low as the murmur
of the Loire, stirred their souls to the depths. Just as the sun sank,
a last red gleam from the sky fell over them; it was like a mournful
symbol of their ill-starred love.

The General, much put out because the carriage was not at the spot where
they had left it, followed and outstripped the pair without interrupting
their converse. Lord Grenville's high minded and delicate behavior
throughout the journey had completely dispelled the Marquis' suspicions.
For some time past he had left his wife in freedom, reposing confidence
in the noble amateur's Punic faith. Arthur and Julie walked on together
in the close and painful communion of two hearts laid waste.

So short a while ago as they climbed the cliffs at Montcontour, there
had been a vague hope in either mind, an uneasy joy for which they dared
not account to themselves; but now as they came along the pathway by the
river, they pulled down the frail structure of imaginings, the child's
cardcastle, on which neither of them had dared to breathe. That hope was
over.

That very evening Lord Grenville left them. His last look at Julie made
it miserably plain that since the moment when sympathy revealed the full
extent of a tyrannous passion, he did well to mistrust himself.

The next morning, M. d'Aiglemont and his wife took their places in the
carriage without their traveling companion, and were whirled swiftly
along the road to Blois. The Marquise was constantly put in mind of the
journey made in 1814, when as yet she know nothing of love, and had
been almost ready to curse it for its persistency. Countless forgotten
impressions were revived. The heart has its own memory. A woman who
cannot recollect the most important great events will recollect through
a lifetime things which appe