bmitted for a few seconds, a few
seconds only, to a man's kisses, and I am no longer a virtuous woman. A
few seconds in my life--seconds that never can be effaced--have brought
into it that little irreparable fact, so grave, so short, a crime, the
most shameful one for a woman--and yet I feel no despair! If anyone had
told me that yesterday, I should not have believed it. If anyone had
convinced me that it would indeed come to pass, I should have thought
instantly of the terrible remorse that would fill my heart to-day."

Monsieur de Guilleroy went out after dinner, as he did almost every
evening. Then the Countess took her little daughter on her lap, weeping
over her and kissing her; the tears she shed were sincere, coming from
her conscience, not from her heart.

But she slept very little. Amid the darkness of her room, she tormented
herself afresh as to the dangers of the attitude toward the painter that
she purposed to assume; she dreaded the interview that must take place
the following day, and the things that he must say to her, looking her
in the face meanwhile.

She arose early, but remained lying on her couch all the morning,
forcing herself to foresee what it was she had to fear and what she must
say in reply, in order to be ready for any surprise.

She went out early, that she might yet think while walking.

He hardly expected her, and had been asking himself, since the evening
before, what he should do when he met her.

After her hasty departure--that flight which he had not dared to
oppose--he had remained alone, still listening, although she was already
far away, for the sound of her step, the rustle of her skirt, and the
closing of the door, touched by the timid hand of his goddess.

He remained standing, full of deep, ardent, intoxicating joy. He had
won her, _her_! That had passed between them! Was it possible? After the
surprise of this triumph, he gloated over it, and, to realize it more
keenly, he sat down and almost lay at full length on the divan where he
had made her yield to him.

He remained there a long time, full of the thought that she was his
mistress, and that between them, between the woman he had so much
desired and himself, had been tied in a few moments that mysterious bond
which secretly links two beings to each other. He retained in his still
quivering body the piercingly sweet remembrance of that wild, fleeting
moment when their lips had met, when their beings had united and