ed that he would
go alone, leaving the Countess free to return when she might feel so
disposed.

The next day she received the telegram announcing Olivier's arrival.

A desire to flee seized her, so much did she fear his first look. She
would have preferred to wait another week or two. In a week, with care
one may change the face completely, since women, even when young and in
good health, under the least change of influence become unrecognizable
from one day to another. But the idea of appearing in broad daylight
before Olivier, in the open fields, in the heat of August, beside
Annette, so fresh and blooming, disturbed her so much that she
decided immediately not to go to the station, but to await him in the
half-darkened drawing-room.

She went up to her room and fell into a dream. Breaths of warm air
stirred the curtains from time to time; the song of the crickets filled
the air. Never before had she felt so sad. It was no more the great
grief that had shattered her heart, overwhelming her before the soulless
body of her beloved old mother. That grief, which she had believed
incurable, had in a few days become softened, and was now but a sorrow
of the memory; but now she felt herself swept away on a deep wave of
melancholy into which she had entered gradually, and from which she
never would emerge.

She had an almost irresistible desire to weep--and would not. Every time
she felt her eyelids grow moist she wiped them away quickly, rose, paced
about the room, looked out into the park and gazed at the tall trees,
watched the slow, black flight of the crows against the background of
blue sky. Then she passed before her mirror, judged her appearance with
one glance, effaced the trace of a tear by touching the corner of her
eye with rice powder, and looked at the clock, trying to guess at what
point of the route he must have reached.

Like all women who are carried away by a distress of soul, whether real
or unreasonable, she clung to her lover with a sort of frenzy. Was he
not her all--all, everything, more than life, all that anyone must be
who has come to be the sole affection of one who feels the approach of
age?

Suddenly she heard in the distance the crack of a whip; she ran to the
window and saw the phaeton as it made the turn round the lawn, drawn
by two horses. Seated beside Annette, in the back seat of the carriage,
Olivier waved his handkerchief as he saw the Countess, to which she
responded by waving h