yes alone shone like stars.

"No, my child, you shall not leave the country you have come so far to
see again; you shall be happy here, or God will refuse to help me; it is
He, no doubt, who has brought you back."

She took the astonished Denise by the hand, and led her away by a path
toward the other shore of the lake, leaving her mother and the rector,
who seated themselves on the bench.

"Let her do as she wishes," said Madame Sauviat.

A few moments later Veronique returned alone, and was taken back to the
chateau by her mother and Monsieur Bonnet. Doubtless she had formed some
plan which required secrecy, for no one in the neighborhood either saw
Denise or heard any mention of her.

Madame Graslin took to her bed that day and never but once left it
again; she went from bad to worse daily, and seemed annoyed and thwarted
that she could not rise,--trying to do so on several occasions, and
expressing a desire to walk out into the park. A few days, however,
after the scene we have just related, about the beginning of June, she
made a violent effort, rose, dressed as if for a gala day, and begged
Gerard to give her his arm, declaring that she was resolved to take
a walk. She gathered up all her strength and expended it on this
expedition, accomplishing her intention in a paroxysm of will which had,
necessarily, a fatal reaction.

"Take me to the chalet, and alone," she said to Gerard in a soft voice,
looking at him with a sort of coquetry. "This is my last excursion; I
dreamed last night the doctors arrived and captured me."

"Do you want to see your woods?" asked Gerard.

"For the last time, yes," she answered. "But what I really want," she
added, in a coaxing voice, "is to make you a singular proposition."

She asked Gerard to embark with her in one of the boats on the second
lake, to which she went on foot. When the young man, surprised at her
intention, began to move the oars, she pointed to the hermitage as the
object of her coming.

"My friend," she said, after a long pause, during which she had been
contemplating the sky and water, the hills and shores, "I have a strange
request to make of you; but I think you are a man who would obey my
wishes--"

"In all things, sure that you can wish only what is good."

"I wish to marry you," she answered; "if you consent you will accomplish
the wish of a dying woman, which is certain to secure your happiness."

"I am too ugly," said the engineer.

"The perso